


Like Lightning

by jottingprosaist (jane_potter)



Series: The Wheel Turns [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Earn Your Happy Ending, Fantastic Racism, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-03-02 02:15:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 99,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2796017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_potter/pseuds/jottingprosaist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pointed undercurrent of Stormcloak’s words resolves as you read the letter a third time. <i>Having heard that your current circumstances are less than favourable… I can guarantee both your welcome and your safety here.</i></p><p>Having heard that you were tortured for three months in the depths of the Thalmor Embassy, he wishes to graciously extend the shelter of his castle and his faction. Perhaps he hopes that you’ve been embittered enough to abandon your own neutrality and take up arms with his cause, Dunmer or no. Perhaps even the great champion of Nord independence can make an exception for a Dunmer who is also Dragonborn, when the tactical and logistical realities of war begin to weigh heavily.</p><p>(A slowburn with bitter arguing, reluctant kinship, and romance in equal measures as the Dragonborn recovers from trauma, Ulfric is confronted with his major failings, and the plot lines of the game unravel everywhere.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lleros (1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Game begins at Helgen in Last Seed of 4E 201. It's now Frostfall of 4E 202, just over a year later.

You are never sure, these days, whether you wake in pain because you’ve passed the night sleeping on stone or because the Thalmor have done something to you that hasn’t—can’t be—healed.

Shivering and puffing breath like smoke into the pale dawn light, you stump out of the cave. Even the bear hide wrapped around your shoulders doesn’t help. You’d rather not be out in the open air at all, but sometime in the night you must have managed to Shout half of your belongings right out of the cave. A plate and one of the furs from your makeshift bed are all that’s left lying in the narrow entranceway. Everything else is scattered down the shallow slope to the creek.

At least your chamber pot had nothing in it, this time.

You gather everything back up, clumsy and stupid with exhaustion. Then, since you’re already out of the cave, you pick your way down to the creek and dip up a tankard of water, your belongings shoved in a bundle beneath one arm. It’s a struggle not to slip and fall on the icy scree. Cursing yourself for not thinking things through, you nonetheless get the water and retreat from the creek unscathed.

Several hours later, you emerge from the cave again, this time squinting in the sunlight. Huddling in your bearskin, you sit on a boulder just outside the entrance and try to absorb as much of the sun’s warmth as possible while gnawing your charred leg of rabbit. The sun is far from hot today, and you resent it. You resent a great deal of the world.

 _What are you doing, Lleros_? 

It’s a bleak thought. The only answer that comes to mind is the obvious: you’re living in a cave in the Rift, surviving off small game and streamwater like you’re barely one step above an animal. You’re penniless and tattered, your armour half missing and your robes of only a few months ago now in stained rags. If your appearance weren’t terrible enough, the screaming you do in the nights would be more than enough to keep the nearest villagers far, far away from this isolated little hole in the rock.

You wonder why you haven’t just left Skyrim. Certainly you did your best to flee as far as possible from—from Solitude. And in this state, you’re of no use against the dragons, or even in any of the countless other small tasks you’ve been entrusted with. You are ruined. You’ve lived in Skyrim your entire life, but surely Morrowind couldn’t be so bad. It would be easier to admit defeat—to give into fear—and just… just go.

You likely wouldn’t survive a second attempt at illegal border crossing, though.

You’re so wrapped up in your shivering and your bitter ruminations that you don’t even hear the approach of running footsteps before your visitor hails, “Good morning!”

Panic makes you taste metal, blood. You have an arrow coming to level on the target before you’ve properly seen him.

The courier goes still as a deer, his flushed face draining white. He doesn’t even dare to lift his hands all the way up to show his unarmed state.

Your arrow is trembling: your arm is trembling.

Your great black bow creaks as you lower it and ease off the string, whole body now shaking. Panic derailed is still working its way through you. “What do you want?” you croak.

“Message for you,” the courier says carefully, still not wholly relaxed though your bow is down. But these runners are tougher than most of Skyrim’s already tough people, and he finds courage enough to cross the stream and approach you, a missive in his extended hand.

You can’t find the courage to fully put away your weapon, even knowing that couriers go lightly armed at best. Fear has a hold on you, though you do your best to shake it.

You should have anticipated that if anyone would track you down here, in this mean and lonely hiding place, it would be a courier: every one of them earned his or her job with a talent for Clairvoyance that even College mages would be hard pressed to match. But although they _could_ easily turn that talent to civil warfare—to locating hideouts, tracking supply caravans, identifying spies— 

—to hunting wanted men for the Thalmor— 

—they adamantly refuse to get involve with either side of the war. This unbending neutrality earns them free passage across all disputed territories. And as neither warring faction wants the province’s mail system to collapse , they do not press the couriers, do not attempt to impersonate them, do not interfere with their deliveries. The Thalmor chafe at that restriction, you have heard, but the Empire’s insistence prevails, at least thus far.

Yet though you know you’re safe from the courier, you still have to keep your eyes on his knife as you take the letter, fumbling.

The envelope is thick, sealed in blue wax with a too-familiar ursine crest. Surprise is so complete that it takes you a moment to even register what you’re feeling.

 

_Dragonborn,_

_Having heard that your current circumstances are less than favourable, I wish to extend a personal invitation to Windhelm. I can guarantee both your welcome and your safety here. If you so desire, you are welcome to take up residence in the Palace of the Kings for as long as is necessary or preferred._

_Regards,_

_Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak_

 

You let out a disbelieving huff, perhaps the closest you’ve come to laughter in a month. Shaking your head, you read the letter again, half expecting the contents to change.

You’ve met Ulfric Stormcloak, but you wouldn’t say you know him. Know _of_ him, certainly—and what little you’ve gathered from gossip and from your brief interactions with the man hadn’t led you to believe that you merit personal correspondence with Stormcloak, let alone… this.

Imagine: a Dunmer living in the Palace of the Kings.

But it’s even harder to imagine Stormcloak playing a joke. A ruse, maybe—something to lure you to Windhelm. For what, you don’t know. You’re too tired to think this through.

The letter has to be genuine, though, or at least genuine enough to fool the courier. Couriers refuse to carry forgeries just as inflexibly as they refuse to get involved in warfare. If this is a trap, the courier doesn’t know that, either.

…Though Ulfric Stormcloak _is_ likely the last man in Skyrim you need to suspect of colluding with the Thalmor to bring you in again.

The pointed undercurrent of Stormcloak’s words resolves as you read the letter a third time. _Having heard that your current circumstances are less than favourable… I can guarantee both your welcome and your safety here._

Having heard that you were tortured for three months in the depths of the Thalmor Embassy, he wishes to graciously extend the shelter of his castle and his faction. Perhaps he hopes that you’ve been embittered enough to abandon your own neutrality and take up arms with his cause, Dunmer or no. Perhaps even the great champion of Nord independence can make an exception for a Dunmer who is also Dragonborn, when the tactical and logistical realities of war begin to weigh heavily.

Lips pressed, you fold the letter up. You’re finally able to look up at the courier, who is still standing nearby and watching you.

“I was asked to bring a response,” he says, confirming your hunch.

The corner of your mouth pulls in something akin to a smile. “Tell Jarl Stormcloak—”

“No, no!” The man’s hands fly up to his ears. “Written messages only. I don’t want to know anything.”

“Ah. Yes.” Of course: if the couriers carried information more nuanced and private than what could be written on paper, even a desire to preserve Skyrim’s fragile channels of communication might not be enough to keep the Thalmor from giving into the temptation to snatch couriers for interrogation.

Your reply is unsophisticated, written on the back of Stormcloak’s letter with a charred twig from your fire, and it’s brusquer than any address to a prospective High King should be. You don’t particularly care if he likes it, though.

 

_Jarl Stormcloak,_

_I regret that I am unable to accept your generous offer unless you send transport, as I currently cannot travel on my own._

_Lleros Ulawayn_

 

If the man won’t spare soldiers to confront bandits attacking his Dunmer citizens—bandits raiding near his city, potentially threatening even his Nord citizens and caravans—then he won’t dispatch a horse and guard across the length of the province for you… especially not if you’re too shattered to even protect yourself on the road. After all, if you’re not capable, then you’re of no use to him. You send the courier off with a slight, bitter smirk.

The acrid amusement disappears almost as quickly as the courier. In the renewed silence, you find yourself looking around warily for anyone else who might be encroaching from the trees, bearskin clutched around your shoulders from something more than cold.

You slip back into the cave. The sunlight isn’t warm enough to justify staying outside, exposed and vulnerable.

 

* * *

 

 

A week later, you’re wrist deep in a half-plucked pheasant when the sound of crackling undergrowth disturbs you. This time you have to scramble for your bow, bloody hands slipping on the ebony. Before you can finish drawing, you’ve made sense of the intrusion: another visitor, unthreatening, standing far back in the trees with her hands up high, palms open.

“Are you the Dragonborn?” she asks, the Nordic twang heavy on her tongue.

“Who are you?”

She seems to take that as confirmation. “Your carriage is waiting on the road. Apologies that we couldn’t bring it any closer.”

“What?”

“Your carriage,” she says patiently. “The trees here are too thick to take it off the road.”

She isn’t wearing a uniform of any kind, but now that you look more closely you can make out the telltale bulge of armour beneath her nondescript clothing. Although no sword disturbs the drape of her cloak, you know a disguised soldier when you see one.

You wonder, very suddenly, how you look through her eyes: the Dragonborn, hero of growing renown, crouching in the dirt with entrails on his hands and mud on his face.

“He sent a carriage,” you repeat, to be sure that you’ve got it right.

“The jarl wasn’t sure if you were in a state to ride or not. He wanted to be sure the transport suited you.”

You stare for a moment more, still thunderstruck, before you manage come to a decision. “Go back. I’ll be down to meet you in a few minutes.”

The icy water of the creek shocks some vitality into you as you scrub your arms and face. Washing that little—not even your hair, which you suddenly realize must be filthy—is all you have time to do. There’s nothing to be done with your clothing; you’ve nothing but the robes that you fled the Thalmor Embassy in. The scattering of gear that you salvaged from a nearby abandoned ruin can be left behind, since there’s no sense bringing rusty tankards and chipped jars to the Palace of the Kings. Nearly the only things you have to bundle into your pack are your furs: all rough, uncured, and most of them grimy. Azura, how savage you must look to them, how _inhuman_.

Just inside the mouth of the cave, you stall. The pack weighs heavily on your back: a familiar weight, but one that you haven’t lifted since stumbling off the carriage you hired from Morthal, the one you told to _drive, just drive_ until finally the driver said he wouldn’t take you any farther on the little purse of gold that you escaped the Embassy with.

Are you really going to Windhelm? There was a time—not so long ago, although it, like so many things, now seems like it happened a lifetime past—when you were angry enough to think you’d never return to Eastmarch, let along to that awful city.

But you asked Stormcloak for transport, and he sent it, with unexpected urgency. You cannot think of a reason he would offer you shelter except to court your allegiance, and if that’s his game, you’re sure you can still manage to deny him your commitment without much difficulty. And, if you are to be honest with yourself, you can’t live in this freezing, cramped little cave for much longer, not with the days of Frostfall growing ever shorter.

It is, you think, unwise to conditionally accept the personal invitation of a jarl, only to decline it when your terms are met. Particularly a jarl like Ulfric Stormcloak.

Trying not to clutch too anxiously at your bearskin, you take a deep breath and go down to meet the carriage.


	2. Lleros (2)

Just past noon, the carriage crosses the Black River at the bridge right before Darkwater Crossing. Downstream of the falls, where the banks broaden and the current slows, the water is eponymously black. The river’s edges are still enough to hold thin, glistening plates of ice even in these early days of winter.

You see little else of your surroundings, though. Embarrassment makes you keep your head down for most of the trip. You barely looked up at Stormcloak’s soldiers even when you first met them, too conscious of your unshaven face and oily hair and the puckered red scars that twist the corners of your mouth.

The carriage’s constant jolting makes you sleep uneasily, dipping and skimming along the surface of unconsciousness. Rather than refreshing you, it merely causes you to lose chunks of time—seconds or hours?—and fragments your memories of the day, so that you seem to recall arriving at the White River confluence mere minutes after passing Fort Amol’s looming ruin. You don’t mind: the relentless disruption of cobblestones and creaking axles ensures that you can’t fall into a place of nightmares and screaming.

Nearby, one of the soldiers huffs and heaves herself out of the cart. You blink awake to a ruddy twilight, and to sudden awareness that the carriage is no longer moving. The dark shape of a building looms over the carriage, another one farther away blots out the setting sun, and on the river’s edge a millwheel’s blades break the water into eddies of gold and black.

“Stay here,” the woman orders, before tromping off across the yard to the mill house. Blearily, you connect vague impressions of her Nordic twang and realize that she’s been in the carriage with you all day, handing you bread and cheese and water. You can’t remember how much you’ve eaten, just that you’ve wolfed down everything you’ve gotten.

You sit up straighter and— _ah_ , your spine splinters like a brittle branch, shooting off cascades of painful sparks— but you stay straight and crane your neck to look after the woman.

The snort of the soldier still sitting behind you, at the carriage’s reins, makes you flinch. You’d forgotten he was there. You risk a glance at him and immediately regret it, because he’s staring flatly at you. Burning with shame, you sink back down and pull your bearskin tighter around yourself, and try to unobtrusively push the loose strands of your oily hair back under your hood.

The mill house door opens and light from inside lances across—across the dark stone floor, and she _tsks_ at the shining pool of your piss and says, “You think I can’t tell what you are? Don’t. Look, just… just be gone by morning”—the miller, the miller says, in this place of sunset and exposed skies, where the wind gusts hard enough to make you shiver. No walls. No darkness.

 _Azura_ , you think desperately, _not this. Not now_. It’s her time: the dusk, the in between, the hour of shadows and light and the blurring together of things. But right now you need to be in the mill yard, the carriage, and nowhere else. _Please, Lady_.

Appealing to a Daedric Prince for mercy is not known to be a fruitful habit, but you’ve learned to be very good at begging, and Azura is not the most pitiless mistress you’ve ever had.

“Come on, then,” the Stormcloak woman says suddenly, thumping the side of the carriage, and then, “Easy now, easy,” at whatever she sees in your face, her voice going gentle rather than jovial. She carries on without your reply, mercifully skimming past your locked jaw and shaking hands as if she can’t see them. “We’ve got permission to put up in the workers’ bunk house. Better than out in the woods, eh?”

Still with your jaw clamped, you manage to twist your mouth into a momentary smile. “Thank you.”

Limping with stiffness, you follow her to the workers’ house. She has to kick the door free of the drift of dead leaves and snow that has frozen it shut. Inside, the house is soaked to the rafters with the smells of old cooking grease and sweat, and there’s an additional overlay of dust that makes your nose itch. As the soldier goes about lighting candles, cursing softly over the tallow stubs, you find a rag and occupy yourself with wiping dust from the table and dishes.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” she says, when she notices. “Bjorn will be done out there in a moment.”

“It’s fine,” you tell her.

“Probably some cheese in one of these cupboards, if you’re hungry,” she coaxes.

A doubtful glance reveals that she genuinely does seem to be concerned. You can’t find it in yourself to be offended by the way she talks: like you’re a kicked dog she’s trying to gentle to her hand. You’re just vaguely ashamed that it’s working.

“All right,” she relents, after a few more moments, apparently taking your silence as refusal. “If you’d prefer, Dragonborn.”

When she sets down a bucket of river water on the floor nearby a few minutes later, you’re grateful for more than the wash water. It’s been a long time since someone let you refuse a suggestion.

The bunk house seems to warm faster when she starts heating rations of sausage and cheese than it did when she lit the actual fire. As it always does, these days, the scent of food makes you hunger down to your bones, like every sinew of your body fears the threat of starvation again. Still, you’re not wild, and you manage to stop yourself from cracking open the first bottle of mead that comes to hand just for something to fill yourself with. Instead, you put a couple bottles on the hearth to warm along with the food.

“Cheers,” the soldier says. Her grin is… unexpectedly powerful.

You wonder what she thinks of the fact that you abruptly retreat, as if she’d scowled instead of beamed. She can’t know that her pleasure made you feel such _relief_ that you’d satisfied her, such a terrifying urge to keep cooperating.

 _Comply. Be safe. No more pain_.

The terrible thing is that these are your own instincts. You cannot blame the Thalmor for putting cowardice in you.

The other Stormcloak, Bjorn, comes in after a while, shaking flurried snow out of his hair. Out of the corner of your eye, you see him give you another of those flat, unimpressed looks.

Over the cooking spit, he mutters something to the woman you don’t catch.

“Asda,” he complains, when she scoffs and flicks mead at him, but doesn’t carry on whatever his discontent was.

Bjorn’s presence in the house makes the air tense—or maybe it’s your presence. All of you know why you are together, and nobody wants to talk about it, least of all you. Conscious of how Bjorn is judging, you eat as slowly and neatly as you can stand to. By mutual consensus, the three of you crawl into bed as soon as the meal is finished, rather than sit around awake in awkward silence.

Eventually, the stifled silence of three people trying to breathe quietly and lie still is replaced by a rising chorus of snores and unconscious movements. Asda stirs and kicks her legs every few minutes; Bjorn whistles softly on each exhale. The fire crackles warmly, and it is nothing like the last time you slept among other people. After a long time, the knot in your stomach gradually loosens away.

You sit up, wincing when the mattress’ ropes creak, and slip off the bed as quietly as possible. Bundled up in furs, you sit leaning back against the wall in the sheltered niche between bed and table. Your spine starts to twinge uncomfortably after a while, but that’s fine: the whole point of sitting up was to stay awake. The mattress was too comfortable.

Here, you could fall into sleep deep enough for Vaermina to find you. It’s better you keep awake in the night to exhaust yourself, then sleep in safe, shallow snatches in the carriage tomorrow. After all, if you remember correctly, it’s nearly another two full days to Windhelm by carriage.

Watching the hearthfire is hypnotic enough that you find your head nodding. Trying to keep yourself better occupied, you pull the tie out of your hair and start picking through the knots. The feel of oil between your fingers makes you grimace. Odd how you never noticed before how filthy it was—you were.

What an impression you’ll make on Ulfric Stormcloak. He already knows that you’re Dunmer and broken; when you show up, he’ll see… this. This unwashed dog, this animal excuse for an elf.

And the first time you went to meet him, you were _so careful_ to bathe and dress well. You met Jarl Balgruuf with blood on your knees and soot on your face; you left muddy boot prints up the length of Highmoon Hall and merely shrugged off Aslfur’s glower. But in Windhelm, after walking the alleys of the Grey Quarter and realizing that to Stormcloak your road-worn robes would look the same as a beggar’s, you rented a room at Candlehearth Hall just to scrub yourself raw and redress before you went to his throne. Will that count for anything, now? Will he remember that you weren’t always what you are now?

Divines and Daedra, you hate Eastmarch.

“Sst. Dragonborn.”

Your head snaps up.

Asda is sitting halfway up in bed, furs rumpled around her middle. Her eyes are clear enough that you can tell she’s been awake and watching for a while.

“Catch,” she whispers. She raises her hand for long enough that you can see what she’s holding before she flicks it across the room.

Your hand spasms unexpectedly, but you manage to grab the comb before it clatters on the floor. It’s made from polished antler, creamy white with red dye rubbed into the carefully incised patterns on its spine: the small treasure that almost every Nord carries around their neck on a leather thong. You had one just like it before—before.

Before you can catch your breath, Asda lies back down, rolls over and resettles her furs, as if nothing had happened. You stare at her back, more astonished than embarrassed. In the face of her steady intent to ignore everything that is wrong with you, you are so grateful that you could cry.

This woman is a _gift_. This woman is—

—is too terribly like the kidskin glove and the gently patronizing gaze, the offer of your armour and robes being neatly arranged on a stand and kept as ‘encouragement’ in a corner of the dungeon where you could always see them from your cell.

 _When you decide to co-operate, I’ll be happy to consider giving your clothes back. Nobody likes seeing you naked, you know_.

 _please. please, pl_ —

 _No. No, if I can’t even trust you not to speak without permission, I’m afraid clothing is quite out of the question for now_.

And the worst is it’s your fault, isn’t it, because you thought you were strong and you decided to fight in the beginning, to Shout until they bridled you, but you weren’t strong after all. Just young and stupid, a nothing with a talent you didn’t deserve. You broke. None of your fighting meant anything, and it would have happened the same if you’d just answered the questions but no, you had to fight, and cost yourself your clothes and your dignity, and—

You put the comb down.

You pick it up, raise it to your hair—falter, and drop it—pick it up—

You stall, struggle, your fist white-knuckled around the comb with its teeth cutting into your joints, your jaw clenched with the effort it takes not to scream because you thought you were _out_ but you are not, you are still back there, where everything is a trap, and it does not stop.

(Did you not learn this already? It never stops.)

Ulfric Stormcloak wants to know if you can be bought with kicked-dog kindness and combs. Carefully, in subtle ways the Thalmor never used but to identical ends, he is testing you.

You may—revulsion wracks your spine, makes you grind your knuckles silently against the floor with your brimming eyes fixed on Asda’s back to make sure she doesn’t stir, doesn’t see—you may have broken for the Thalmor, but you do not have to break for Stormcloak. Not for _that_ man. No. You will stand before him in ruin and you will refuse to care. What does it matter how highly you can make the man think of you, when you also know he would rather erase you and every other Dunmer from his land entirely?

It didn’t matter last time, how you fought, but this time—this time…

And then you realize:

Stormcloak already knows how easily you are bought. Your price is the vague offer of shelter and a carriage ride. It is too late to pretend that you can fight his intent to make you cooperate.

(Did you not learn this already, too? Your fighting doesn’t mean anything.)

Hands shaking so violently that it’s difficult to hold the comb, you comply, and pick the knots from your hair one lock at a time. The care and caution you take is not to avoid pain, but to make sure that you don’t damage Asda’s comb.

 

* * *

 

By the time dawn comes, you’re too drained to still be feeling sick, ashamed, or terrified. Everything is aches and exhaustion and the sourness of old mead in your mouth. In this, Azura’s second time, the hazy in between of consciousness and oblivion suits you just fine. It’s not normally what you pray to her for, but you’ll take it.

In your stupor, you see Asda looking at you with worry, hear her ask questions with concern that overrides her dedication to benevolently ignoring your faults. Apparently your face is haggard enough that even she can’t overlook it. You wave her off vaguely, never meeting her eyes. Eventually, you’ve stared off into the distance and ignored her for long enough that she gives up.

At the reins of the carriage, Bjorn mutters discontentedly. This time Asda is less inclined to rebuke him.

With you mute and both Stormcloaks speaking very little more, much of the ride goes silently. The flurries of yesterday evening become slow, blowing curtains of grey that dim and muffle everything as Eastmarch’s sulfurous volcanic plains turn to tundra. With your limbs folded tight against the cold and nothing visible through the narrow slit of your hood but whirling snow, you drift.

The thought comes to you hours down the road, like a crystal of ice forming slowly from cloudy water.

Let Ulfric Stormcloak buy you. After all, your fighting only made things harder on you before; there’s no reason to repeat that mistake. Comply with his kindness for as long as it benefits you. Be safe. Avoid pain.

Heal, if you can. Gods know you need the strength. There are still dragons to be fought-- still Alduin to be slain-- and whether or not you deserve the talent Kyne gave you, you’re the only one who has it.


	3. Ulfric (1)

It was cold and bright as Ysgramor’s axe on the day you met the Dragonborn.

That’s what you always remember first, when you think of him: the sudden bite of light and frigid air that invaded your throne room in advance of his appearance. A spring blizzard the previous night had left the city frozen solid by daybreak, and it had taken all day to finally warm the lower chambers of the Palace of Kings. You were a true Nord, and strong against the snow, but nobody was impervious to the mundane indignity of cold toes.

The invasion of an icy draft had made your back stiffen with annoyance. A step below your throne, Jorlief had paused in mid-word.

The Dragonborn’s appearance takes on epic tones in your memory, as hard as you try to erase them. The heroic tales that so captivated you in your youth, the knowledge of his legendary bloodright—such things are indelible even against corrupt reality.

He had seemed to materialize out of the light, a black figure that shouldered through the door not as if the ancient steel-studded oak weighed nothing, but as if he had every ounce the muscle necessary to heave it. His robes had billowed in the warm counterdraft rushing out the doors behind him: heavy travelling garments, not mage’s robes. He had—and this the only unmythic thing—put a gloved hand back to help the guard pull the door shut behind him.

And when the blinding daylight had been cut off, your eyes adjusted and you saw that the skin of your visitor was no trick of the light, but grey as ash.

“Today is not for public consult,” you said softly, more to yourself than Jorlief, who nonetheless agreed, “No.”

Rather than telling the guards to direct the greyskin away, you waited in prickly silence, knowing how discomfiting that could make the his walk up the empty, echoing hall. And not entirely pettishly, you had scrutinized your visitor at greater length: from his boots, well-worn but recently oiled, to his neatly tied hair. The unstrung bow on his back had the brutal recurve favoured by bear and mammoth hunters, but was made of ebony that very few hunters could afford—or needed.

It was that, and the fact that his robes had no holes in them, that told you this elf wasn’t one of yours.

“Only the foolish or the courageous approach a Jarl without summons.”

It made him hesitate, if only for a moment. “Forgive me, Jarl Stormcloak,” he said, inclining his head, “but I was approaching your steward.”

Jorlief coughed and stepped down from the dais to intercept the greyskin in the last few feet to your throne. “Yes?”

“I’m here for the bounty on the dragon,” announced the elf.

“The… one at Bonestrewn Crest?”

The greyskin smiled, white teeth a shock in his dark face. “It certainly was.”

And that _irritated_ you, like a burr in your boot: a small thing, a trifling thing, one that prickled worse than it should have. You should have been relieved that your hold’s central plains were no longer under threat from a creature out of legend, should have been intrigued by the individual who could evidently bring down a dragon all on his own…but.

The elf didn’t look at you, not when Jorlief hesitantly asked him for proof and he produced from his pack a talon the length of his forearm, not while waiting for Jorlief to count out the septims. Perhaps it was pointed disregard, perhaps not—difficult to tell, from the calm blankness of his face. You, on the other hand, kept him fixed with a hard look the whole time, because there was _something_ beneath the annoyance and wary curiosity that said, _Not so simple_. Soldier’s instinct. Revolutionary’s paranoia.

“Do I know you?” you asked, as he closed the drawstrings on his purse.

Greyskin eyes never failed to unsettle you in a primal way. He smiled again, not softening that direct, crow-picked stare. “I was with you in Helgen.”

Memory snagged: the slack face unconscious at the bottom of the cart, one so clearly unallied that you would have disregarded it entirely if it hadn’t been for the six hours you were forced to spend bound in that cart, caught between seething rage and monotony. The unlisted name that had stalled Tullius’ execution, however, evaded you. “Ah, yes. Destined for the chopping block, if I'm not mistaken.”

Irritation made his face twinge for the first time. “For crossing the border by a pass that nobody bothered to mark as closed before they arrested me.”

“Such is the Imperial whim.”

He twisted his mouth, and you thought far less of him for that skepticism than for whatever had led to his arrest.

You abruptly grew tired of him. “Is there anything else? I’m a busy man.”

“Well. Yes, actually.” Gods above, if he said the words ‘Grey Quarter’ you would have him thrown out. “I didn’t _just_ come to see your steward.”

“What is it?” you demanded, fingers tapping the arm of your throne impatiently. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Jorlief withdraw.

“I came to introduce myself.” He hesitated and looked away for the first time, rubbing his thumb, before lifting his chin and setting his shoulders with a visible force of will. “Jarl Stormcloak, I have been to High Hrothgar, and the Greybeards called me Dragonborn.”

For a moment, you could not react. It was— _brazen_ , was what it was. Shameless. And it made true anger coil up inside your chest. He wasn’t the first person that you’d heard of claiming the title of Dragonborn, but he was the first that had done it to your face, or that had thought to drag the reputation of High Hrothgar into it. Was this greyskin’s evident martial prowess not enough for him, that he had to take advantage of the dragons’ nightmarish return and profit by claiming a legend’s glory for his own?

“The Dragonborn is a hero of human legend,” you said, slow with warning, “so you’ll understand if I have my doubts about you.”

He blinked. “Are you asking me to prove it to you?”

“If you can.”

His mouth worked silently for a moment before he managed words; you seized on that weakness, and remembered it. “I would have thought you of all people would understand how… problematic it can be to Shout at a man on a throne.”

Derision told you to slouch farther, to curl your lip. Pragmatism overruled, and made you sit forward with your elbows on your knees. It was partly to loom over him with the head of height the dais afforded you, partly to slip your sword hand behind the opposite elbow and rest it on your thigh, in easy reach of the hilt on your hip. “I wouldn’t call myself concerned, in this case.”

The clench of his jaw was all the warning you had. Warning of his breaking temper, you thought—

—but what followed was Voice. Power.

Five eternal seconds of howling blizzard aimed directly over your head.

Pierced by the sudden resonant quake of your _bones_ that you hadn’t felt in years, you sat rigid with shock. The greyskin didn’t move, either, didn’t break his accusing red stare until the first guard rammed into him from behind. Then he went down, knees kicked out, fistfuls of his robes and hair dragged in conflicting directions by the sudden flurry of guards trying to seize him in a panic, all at once, all yelling.

“Enough!” you shouted—not quite Shouted, but with enough raw reverberation that the dishes trembled on the board for a second time. The guards went still, allowing you a glimpse of the greyskin on his knees in their midst. He was still trying to stare you down, even with two blades at his throat and his teeth bared in pain.

“Let him up. Return to your posts.”

“My lord—”

“ _Go_.” You reined your temper back in, recalling the necessity and sensitivity of morale. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but it’s not necessary right now. Save your blades for Imperial blood.”

It was fortunate that when Galmar burst into the hall moments later, the greyskin was on his feet and you had descended the dais, so that no conflict was visible between the two of you. Otherwise, the naked axe in Galmar’s hand would not have waited for dark elf blood.

“Ulfric! What in Oblivion was that for?” He was a man of outstanding single-mindedness when it came to violence, yet some of his fury was derailed as he caught sight of something over your head. “What words were those?”

Of course. He knew every Shout that you could manage, had seen them all at work. None of them could let you scream like a blizzard off the cruelest peak in midwinter. When you followed Galmar’s stare, you saw that the crest over your throne had been all but obscured by thick rime, and that even the banners behind the throne were plastered to the wall beneath an icy glaze.

Power. Such incredible power. And all from the throat of…

The elf’s presence commanded your attention again— _still_ —but now at least you knew why. “The words weren’t mine,” you said slowly, meeting his red eyes again. If you yourself were still struggling to process what had just happened, at least the greyskin’s reaction was easy enough to read: defiance, badly masking uncertainty. “So. Dragonborn.”

“As I told you,” he insisted.

“And what else did you come to tell me?”

For the first time, he dipped his head in something that could have passed for manners. “I came to pay you the same respects I’ve paid the jarls of every other hold I’ve visited.”

“Respect,” you said, disbelieving. “Respect doesn’t win wars.”

You heard his sharp breath, and knew you’d plucked a string he had hoped you wouldn’t touch. More the fool he, then, to think you had anything else on your mind. “I didn’t come to fight your war.”

“Are you fighting the Empire’s war, then?” Galmar demanded, stepping in closer to flank the elf. You couldn’t tell whether it was the action of a housecarl or a soldier, to defend you or to attack, but either way the threat was clear.

His proximity made the elf shift, finally. He retreated a step with visible discomfort. “I’m not fighting anybody’s war.”

The protest was one you’d heard from every greyskin in the whole Quarter, and it dashed any hope you had managed to retain through the let-down of his identity. Disappointment was _bitter_. “Then I’ve no time for you,” you snapped.

“I’m fighting the dragons!” he retorted unexpectedly. “If I swear allegiance to one side, I lose the freedom to travel on the other. Do you expect me to just ignore every dragon burning down villages outside your territory?”

“It would do a lot of our work for us,” Galmar snorted. “They’ve already accepted the cost of standing with their false kings.”

No longer trying to disguise his emotions in the least, the elf looked at Galmar with disgust. “Divines help the people whose leaders don’t care for their lives,” he spat. The vehemence of it took Galmar by surprise. All that took you by surprise, though, was that he’d beat you to the censure. “My work is for the people of Skyrim. Gods willing, maybe there’ll be something left of us when all you kings and warlords are through.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Galmar protested.

“I fight for my people as well,” you cut in, before the situation could deteriorate farther. The Dragonborn’s skin, his eyes, his politics—these were all foreign to you, but his _words_ you knew. His words, and the unexpected wellspring of protective fury they revealed, could have been yours. You tried to hold his eyes again, feeling it vital to have him _understand_ the thing in you that you suddenly saw in him. “For the men I’ve seen dying on foreign soil. For their wives and children—”

But he was shaking his head, stepping back. The words and the passion that had drawn in so many of Skyrim’s people seemed to have no hold on him. The hot crackle of connection between the two of you was suddenly gone.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I’ll take my leave.”

That was not how being excused from a jarl’s presence worked, but his lack of manners were the least of your concerns. “Stay,” you insisted.

“Your pardon,” he said flatly, again only the shadow of etiquette. His bow, at least, was deep, but he did it still retreating, then spun on his heel and strode away.

“Let him go,” you murmured, interrupting Galmar’s sharp intake of breath.

Your housecarl scoffed. “He’s not really the Dragonborn.”

You hoped he could feel your eyes burning into his back down the whole length of the hall. “On Talos’ sword. His Voice is powerful.”

“How? Since when do elves wield that power?”

The hall’s door boomed shut. The things you wanted to give voice to were not Galmar’s answer.

“You shouldn’t have pressed him,” you said instead, finally turning back to Galmar. “He’s no soldier. He doesn’t think like you or I.”

“Don’t tell me you think you could have talked him around. Balgruuf is one thing, but this?”

“He might yet have been convinced.”

“Not his kind, Ulfric. Save your breath for something useful.”

Convincing Galmar of that possibility, of the vital connection you’d glimpsed, was another thing you were better served to save your breath on. At least he was accustomed to conversations that ended in your silence. And if he noticed the brooding set of your face, he thought little of it.

The ice on your throne took three days to melt even after the servants tried heating it with torches, leaving the seat impossible to occupy until it stopped dripping. But that hardly mattered, because for those days an unnatural cold pervaded the hall and forced you to keep to other chambers altogether. You weren’t sure what frustrated you more: the chill that your Nordic blood couldn’t shake, or the irrational feeling that you’d been deliberately driven out of your own hall.

You have never seen the Dragonborn again since.

The guard you sent to follow him had little to report: after leaving the Palace of the Kings, the elf spent the next few days wandering around Windhelm, talking to people and visiting shops to resupply. He had evidently talked his way into bed with the proprietor of the Grey Quarter’s used goods store, your guard said with some derision, because he spent every night there after the shop closed.

Then he vanished... slipped out the dockside gate in the night, likely. Frustrated anew, you pressed for information about his parting, as if confirming his trail could somehow put him back within your reach. In asking around the docks, all that your informant discovered was that the Dragonborn had also put his hand into the Argonian situation. At dinner a week later, Torbjorn Shatter-Shield seemed more resigned than anything at having had higher wages leveraged out of him.

“It’s almost worth the cost to have the boots quiet down,” he grumbled. “And anyway, they’ll spend practically all of it in the Stone Quarter, and the shops will order more goods to be shipped in, so I’ll get it back one way or another."

Again, you bit your tongue, though you wondered if those words were really Torbjorn’s own.

Spring came, as did an unexpected charge of Imperial troops. Despite the cautionary tale of the previous year's ambush at Darkwater Crossing, you took to the field in combat alongside your soldiers when the encroachment on your borders quickly began to grow dire.

Summer passed in blood and heat, in a feverish haze of exhaustion and the realer-than-life energy of battle fever. There was death all around, though a great deal more of it was on the Imperial side. Your aching familiarity with the Legion's structure and strategy paid off, while they still had yet to find an effective way to counteract your troops' hit and run tactics.

And through all those times, there came the rumours: of dragons, and the Dragonborn. You often found yourself as irritated as you were intrigued by the tales. It was difficult to reconcile the memory of an elf spitting, _Gods willing, maybe there’ll be something left of us when all you kings and warlords are through,_ with a millwife's story that the Dragonborn had hunted bear for her, with a new recruit's bragging that he had plundered a tomb alongside an elf that could breathe fire. Was it that you could not discern the plan behind his actions, or that he did not have one?

You were surprised at how it unsettled you when the stories stopped.

Conjecture arose to explain the silence, the absence: that the Dragonborn had fled, had fallen in love, had been a fraud, had been injured, had been killed. You believed nothing for certain until your informants brought you news that there were Justiciars on the roads arresting dark elves indiscriminately, flushing the Haafingar and Hjaalmarch wilderness like hounds on a scent, impounding and interrogating entire villages at a time for information on the Dragonborn or any accomplices.

And then--

_To all men and women of Skyrim: The Dunmer Lleros Ulawayn, known to call himself the Dragonborn, has committed crimes against Skyrim, including theft, murder, Daedra worship, and conspiracy against the Empire._

_A reward will be offered to anyone who recaptures him. Any knowledge of his whereabouts is to be reported to Imperial soldiers or Thalmor Justiciars. Failure to immediately report will be considered assisting a wanted fugitive, and will result in imprisonment and seizure of property._

\--then you hired the only courier in Eastmarch that would run mail to a fugitive from justice. You are not above threatening the stability of the courier system if it means intervening in a Thalmor "recapturing."

These are the memories that preoccupy you now, although you have more important things to work on. You've let the candles burn down too far in the hours you've spent indecisively considering troop movements.

War may be the season unending, but the year’s actual seasons have impact on it. With the last days of autumn vanishing in early blizzards, you find yourself neck-deep in the rush to arrange safe winter lodging for not just a single elf, no matter how important, but for thousands of soldiers. The borders you spent all summer battling to merely hold, forget about advance, are secure once again, but the fortifications and camps pitched for warm days cannot last. Your troops need to dig in for the winter in places where they can rest out the lull in relative peace, not merely freeze and starve. Oh, they will be cold and hungry—Skyrim’s winters guarantee this for everyone, always—but they must not die. Their morale must not be allowed to die.

The first winter of this war was a short, warm one. Though it allowed for more Imperial troop movement and skirmishes than a usual Northern Night would have, the brevity of it was a blessing. Food stores lasted, spring came early, and crop yields were good... Even if you are maddened to have spent a whole year at war and have gained next to nothing in terms of ground, Jorlief consoles you that at least you are not in worse condition than when you started. If nothing else, the passing of time has brought more people’s minds and hearts to your side.

So you hold your amulet of Talos absently, bent over the maps, and pray for another good winter. _May the Stormcrown of winter deflect my enemy’s arrows and shield us until spring_.

The groan of an opening door echoes through your silent hall. A cold draft sucks at the candle flames.

Nobody is in the war room to see how fast you jerk upright and stride for the door. Your heart is beating faster with anticipation. In the ten steps it takes you to reach the entry hall, everything that you had pushed away as irrelevant, distracting, comes flooding back. For those ten steps, you cannot stop yourself from wondering what the Dragonborn’s condition is, what has been done to him—from fighting anxiety and pessimism and hope against hope--

When you see the people who have entered the hall, you rebuke yourself for overreacting. It’s just a beggar being brought in to jail. Then… then you recognize him after all, the filthy, dead-eyed elf your soldiers are escorting toward you.

The Dragonborn still has his vicious bow, but that’s all that’s the same as you remember. He looks as though he was literally dragged out of a gutter, mud and rags and all. The fact that he’s combed and tied his hair back only makes its greasy shine more obvious. Nothing is visible of his body, but the corners of his mouth have been warped by ugly red scarring. You have terrible suspicion informed by too many memories.

He walks differently, stands differently when he comes to a halt in front of you: hunched, eyes downcast, body angled as if he wants to withdraw but has nowhere to go.

There is no connection.

After all these years, it turns out that you still have naïve optimism to be shattered. You aren’t sure whether you’re more disgusted with him or yourself.

“Bjorn. Asda,” you greet, because you cannot find other words yet. “Dragonborn. This is a welcome sight.”

Red eyes flicker up for only a moment at his title, and then he looks away again, mouth stretching in something uglier than a smile. Some phantom strain in your jaw recalls that expression. “Is it really?”

“After the rumours I heard…” You let the implications skate by, yet the elf still flinches. “I’m just glad to see you’re still alive.” When he says nothing, you add, “I wasn’t certain the courier would find you.”

“Well. I… appreciated your letter,” he rasps, with apparent difficulty. By his side, one of his hands flutters like a broken bird. “I. I didn’t…”

That’s enough of this, you realize. He's only just arrived, but you can't do this. His vulnerability is a raw, ugly wound, something that shouldn’t be exposed to the air, and you want it hidden as quickly as possible.

“Asda. Fetch Jorlief from the kitchens.” The elf sways toward her when she smartly hurries off, as if he were a heartbeat from following. Trying to catch his attention, to ease the tension, you say, “There’s a room ready for you upstairs. I imagine you wouldn’t mind a bed. Or a bath.”

You curse yourself the moment the words leave your tongue. They land too hard, forcing down the elf’s shoulders like physical weight. A moment ago it was difficult for you to keep your disgust off your face, but now, suddenly, all you can remember is the shame: paralyzing shame, over every moment your hands shook, every time you flinched, every day that you weren’t the man your father expected to welcome home. Everything. Twenty years, and it still comes back this sharply.

A few moments later, Jorlief is there, and you are relieved for the distraction, if nothing else. He takes the Dragonborn into his command with the deftness of a steward long practiced. Whatever Jorlief thinks of this guest, he shows nothing but brisk efficiency as he ushers the elf up the stairs to the north wing. For his part, the elf looks blindsided by Jorlief’s sudden firm direction, and cooperates meekly. (Your momentary flare of anticipation that the elf will recoil from Jorleif’s oblivious guiding hand is baseless. Relief, again.) Within moments, their steps have faded.

Good. You’ll get Jorlief’s thoughts later. Right now…

“How was the journey?” you ask Asda and Bjorn, who both snap their shoulders back and their heads up.

“An easy one, my lord,” Bjorn says. “He was where the courier said he was. Nobody challenged us on the road, and we saw no sign of anyone following us back here. Nobody seemed to notice us bringing him in here, either.”

“No trouble at all?”

“A couple of wolves on the road this morning, sir,” Asda puts in. There’s distinctly more warmth in her voice than in Bjorn’s when she tells you, “He doesn’t look like much, but the Dragonborn can still manage that bow. There’s something wrong with his hand, though.” She raises her right hand and illustrates that convulsive twitch you witnessed earlier. “Fumbled an arrow. But he still shot two of the beasts.”

A glance is all it takes to prompt Bjorn to voice the sour disagreement clear on his face. “I don’t know what kind of dragon killer he can be. He doesn’t seem to have much of a spine.”

“He’s got Legionary’s disease, aye,” Asda interrupts, eyeing him coldly.

“That’s not a disease, it’s weakness,” Bjorn retorts. “Cowardice.”

“You wouldn’t dare tell me that Bal’s touch is weakness.”

“This isn’t Molag Bal’s touch!”

“Different names, different causes, same thing!”

“Enough!” Both of them jump and stiffen back into parade rest, abruptly recalling your presence. You let the silence stretch for a painfully long moment, glaring.

Their argument is nothing new to you; even in the Legion, where commanders and healers alike were far more likely to accept that wounds of the mind could be equal to wounds of the body, there were people who disagreed. (You—you know your own truth.) It’s the fact that they’re divided enough to forget their alliance and fight among themselves. In front of you, no less. They’re two of your most trusted soldiers—Windhelm residents, among the earliest volunteers to the ranks—and yet… this.

But you don't have the patience to deal with it right now. “I don’t have to tell you that no word of this can get out. Imperial spies are everywhere.”

“No, sir!”

“Dismissed.” Barely, you remember to add, “Talos guide you.” Morale. Always and forever morale.

When they’ve disappeared into the Bloodworks, the whole palace seems silent again. Exhaustion suddenly weighs on you, not entirely a product of the late hour, or even the long week. Unwilling to let any of men standing guard see it, you return to the war room before you let your neck bend.

(The vulnerability. The shame.)

You already know the only productive thing you’ll manage tonight is another visit to the temple.


	4. Lleros (3)

Windhelm is cold in a way that has nothing to do with the snowstorm.

It’s not just the current circumstances that make you feel like the thick stone walls and their occupants are unwelcoming: Windhelm has never been among your favourite Hold capitals. In your current state, you just feel the disconnect more keenly.

Falkreath will always be the standard to which you hold all others: small, dim, quiet, and warm. It is blurred at the edges, the places where the city folds into forest as if there is nearly no division between them, as if the buildings are themselves organic, pines that have merely grown into longhouses and stockades rather than poles. And though it is full of shared history and a uniquely dark humour that binds all its residents together, there is no division between city-dwellers and forest-walkers, no hardness or exclusivity to prevent you and your mother from trailing in with branch-whipped cloaks and gutted elk over your shoulders.

Whiterun is an acceptable second, familiar from childhood. Its market is busier, the sellers less intimate but not less friendly. You even had friends among them, Anoriath and Elrindir, whom you sometimes met on the Whiterun plains when your mother could get leave to hunt the jarl’s deer there, in the Falkreath forests when they got Siddgeir’s permission.

And Morthal—Morthal you liked because of its fascinating ecology and welcoming herbalist, despite its inextricable linkage to memories of the Greybeards’ trial, the slime and must of Jurgen Windcaller’s bog-sunken tomb, the failure that had awaited you in that last dark chamber. (That had led you to Riverwood, to Delphine, who told you— And when they asked you—)

But Windhelm is too much like Markarth, the city your parents never favoured even though it was the capital of their own Hold. All the stone makes people hard, you think, and then all the people grind each other down. You lived there for six years as the apothecary’s apprentice, but the apprenticeship was interrupted by the Forsworn uprising. You don’t regret that you never went back after everything was over to see what that bloodbath did to Markarth. The uprising hardened your village enough even though you were only on the struggle’s periphery, out in the foothills of the Reach; it can only have done worse to the city of silver and blood.

It can only have done the same as Stormcloak’s uprising has done to Windhelm: made everything savage just beneath the surface. All of Stormcloak’s supporters are hungry for blood, eager to validate themselves through victory, and all his detractors are sullen and bitter, constantly defensive because they are outnumbered. It’s no way to live.

But here and now, in this room high up in the Palace of the Kings, the fire in the grate is warm, and there is a deep tub of bath water steaming on the hearth. And you are letting yourself be bought. It’s not as if you have many options right now… or as if your dislike of Stormcloak and his city will change anything.

“You’re welcome to anything in the room,” Jorleif is saying. “There are clothes in the wardrobe, of course. Anything you need washed—” His momentary pause, the first indication of disdain, makes you wince and look back at him. “—give it to the servants and they’ll take care of it.”

“Servants?” you ask, baffled.

In the corner of your eye, someone steps out of the shadows to come up behind you. You flinch away instinctively, dodging toward the fireplace.

The prompt servant, her arms full of clean linens, falters.

“No,” you say, too loudly. You struggle to collect yourself in the face of Jorleif’s stare. “No. Thank you. That’s—not necessary.”

“In the morning, then,” Jorleif says after a moment. “A good night, sir.”

Once they’re gone, you have to stand very still, pressing your eyes tightly shut. Your right hand spasms without warning, so you ball it into a fist with your other hand and squeeze until your knuckles grind together.

You thought that surely, after making such a mess of things with Stormcloak, you could manage to keep yourself together for long enough to handle the steward. But… no. It feels like you cannot manage human contact anymore. All you have left are overreactions—violence out of its proper time and place—and inactions—moments when the simplest things seem beyond your grasp. You’re as uselessly erratic as your damaged arm.

Biting your lip with anger, you start to undress, flinging bearskin and gloves carelessly at the bed. But at the first shiver of exposed skin, you have to go over and bar the door. You take off armguards, your boots, then reassure yourself by checking the door again. Your shoulder aches when you twist it to pull off your shirt.

The crawling lace of scar tissue on your torso shines in the firelight, white against your dark skin like patterns of frost. It is not frost. You cannot _not_ look at it, at the way your skin puckers and pulls because the scarred lattice is just slightly too tight, too inflexible.

It gets difficult to breathe as you step out of your pants and smallclothes, baring the white branches that run across your belly, down your right thigh, around your knee… all the way down to the darker scar around your ankle where the manacle caught every spark and held the heat. It all spreads out from the epicentre of damage on your hip, a mass of thick red scarring, palm-sized. Half your body, covered by lightning.

You start to shake violently, overreacting again. Water splashes out onto the floor as you hurriedly climb into the tub. The bath is too hot, startling a choked curse past the lump in your throat, but you force yourself to sit through the burn. The pain—this _particular_ pain—is not familiar. The water brings no memories, just a whole-body searing that lets your mind white out mercifully for a while.

When the heat is bearable, you splash water onto your face, into your hair. Difficult to say if your cheeks were already wet.

Everything feels distant, disjointed, like your soul isn’t quite occupying your body correctly. Still, you struggle to go through the steps you know must come next, the mechanics of washing. Wet skin, wet hair...

The soap on the washstand is a thick green cake that smells like pine, not the white powder you once used to clean your hair with on the road. You nearly drop it when it gets slippery, not because your hand spasms but because it doesn’t have the scratch of sand that your soap at home did.

You are _trying_ , but nothing is the same. Nothing is simple.

You wash—

Then, suddenly the water is cold and grey, a greasy film on its surface. You wrinkle your nose in disgust and make to heave yourself out of the tub. Water sluices down your body—down your face from the hair twisted in a knot on top of your head—and then it’s just cold, freezing cold air, and you are shivering violently, broken awake by the shock of frigid water but it’s not the cold that could make you cry, it’s the knowledge that they’ve woken you up, they’ve come for you again, they’re here to start another day and—

When your arms give out, you manage to fall outside the tub. The scrape of your legs over the tub’s wooden edge brings you fully back into the room. Nonetheless, you lie on the floor for a while, dizzy and nauseous, shaking violently. The floor is safe. It’s where they left you after they were done for the day.

The thought stings enough to get you moving again. You’re not a toy to be abandoned on the floor, not anymore. You have to do better now. You have to _get_ better.

The fire is hot but the stone walls don’t hold warmth well enough to keep you from shivering. Teeth chattering, you fumble through the wardrobe Jorleif had pointed out and pull on the first garments that come to hand. Everything is too short in the limb and too broad in the trunk, tailored for Nord bodies, but at least the shirt doesn’t strain across your shoulders the way most pre-made clothing does.

“Azura,” you rasp, dragging a sleeve over your face. It’s soft: tundra cotton, not wool. Expensive. And you—you’re getting it wet. Your hair is dripping; your face is—

 _What are you_ crying _for, Lleros_?

It’s beyond stupid, but you’re clean and safe and this warm, soft shirt makes you feel helpless in a way that weeks of dirt didn’t. Gulping a breath to choke off the tears just makes the next breath hitch harder, a convulsive hiccup of distress. You scrub a hand over your eyes, angry and ashamed, but it doesn’t help.

You stop fighting.

(You’re very familiar with that.)

Sobbing messily into your hand, you stumble toward the bed. You got bathwater on the floor, but—no, the door is barred, you checked twice before and you detour compulsively to check once again—no, the servants won’t be able to get in and see the mess you’ve left. You’ll clean it in the morning. Let you give Ulfric Stormcloak no cause to think you a worse guest than he already does.

You surely won’t be his guest for long. If clean clothing makes you weep and your mind stutters back to the dungeon over every little cold draft, you’re far more broken than you had thought. How are you going to manage life in the Palace of the Kings?

The blankets are thick green wool, heavy enough that their weight presses you into the mattress and makes you feel a little less fragile, less likely to shake into pieces. You hiccup and break into another wave of tears at the downy surrender of the pillow beneath your cheek.

The only part of you that’s not miserable and frightened is angry instead, a frail core of rage that flares at the thought that Stormcloak will be justified in thinking you unfit.

Exhausted as you are, there’s little to do but try to make it through the night. Perhaps things will seem easier in the morning.

You sleep.

* * *

 

You wake up to screaming and fire.

The dream is terrible but indistinct, the sort of terror that leaves you rabbit-hearted and shaking for no concrete reason. Impressions of candle flames and hot iron make your vision flicker as you struggle out from under the smothering blankets, already moving before you’re fully awake. 

You stagger to your feet. It’s not easy to make your groggy eyes focus with how the shadows are moving as if the room is on fire.

—No, the room is actually _on fire_.

You choke for air, throat burning from more than just the Shout that you can feel echoing in your strained vocal cords now that you pay attention. On the wall across from your bed the tapestry is going up in flames faster than you can comprehend. Panic grabs you like a fist around the throat.

“What’s going on in there?”

Startled badly enough to go weak in the knee, you wheel around to stare wildly at the door. The guard outside pounds on it. Then there's more than one guard, several summoned by your Shout, their voices joining and rising because you haven’t answered. The fire roars.

Immediate need takes over where rational thought has failed. “Don’t!” you shout at the door, through a throat still too tight. You grab the pitcher on your bedside table and hurl its contents at the tapestry, then dunk it into the tub of cold water and throw that, too.

“Open the door!” one of the guards commands.

“Please don’t,” you say, closer to begging and tears than you’d admit because the tapestry is still burning, flames licking at the curtain rod. Everything has gone so wrong, so fast, and you can’t think. You _cannot_ be caught like this. “Please, just—”

“Open the door!” she shouts, and then a mailed shoulder crashes against the planks.

“ _Stop it_!” you scream back with a terrible crack in your voice. “Stay _out_!”

“What’s happening?”

“Axe!”

“ _Open_ —”

And then silence. You clutch the pitcher so hard that your knuckles hurt, insanely prepared to fight the first person through the door. It doesn’t matter that this isn’t the Embassy; you’re still trapped in a cell, and they’ll—they’re going to—

Someone knocks quietly on the door, three polite taps. You flinch.

“Dragonborn?”

 _Stendarr, let me die now_. That measured baritone belongs to Ulfric Stormcloak.

Unsteady on your feet, you weave over to the door, responding automatically to manners before you remember yourself. One hand on the door bar, unable to make yourself lift it, you choke out instead, “Please don’t.”

A pause. “Are you hurt?”

It’s not what you expected. “No. Please, just—stay outside.”

“Is something burning?”

The tapestry has burned up to its rod and gone out. You shudder with shame. “No. I—not anymore.” A gulping breath. “I’m sorry.”

Stormcloak’s silence lasts so long that humiliation nearly overwhelms you, nearly breaks your fear and makes you submit to facing him with some pretense of dignity instead of cowering here while he waits for you to face up like a man. Before you can lift the bar, though, he speaks again.

“Go back to your posts,” he says inexplicably. “Yrsarald—no, that won’t be necessary. Everyone, go.”

 _To the guards_ , you realize at last. You let your forehead fall against the door.

Over the grinding of your teeth, you listen to voices murmur uncertainly, but in the end nobody argues against the Jarl’s order. Boots shuffle and then disperse, fading into the distance.

The sound of one more boot scraping the stone makes you jump because you’d thought they’d all gone. The pit of your stomach drops. Stormcloak must still be standing outside the door. Barely, barely, you can hear his breath rasping harder than it ought. But you can’t summon the strength to speak past the lump in your throat, so you squeeze your eyes shut and wait.

After an eternity, Stormcloak leaves without saying a word.

You slide down the wall and spend the rest of the night where you fall, kept awake again by the fear of Vaermina. She pricks at the back of your neck with cold claws—or maybe that’s the Ambassador— as you try to pray. Your hands keep straying to grasp amulets that no longer hang around your neck.

When dawn comes, you still don’t have the words you’ll need to excuse yourself to Stormcloak and quickly, quietly leave Windhelm.


	5. Lleros (4)

Four days later, you still reside in the Palace of the Kings. You’re not entirely certain how or why.

In the light of your first morning there, the burned tapestry had looked even worse than it had the night before. Dragonfire burned hotter and longer than any natural fire, and it had left black scorches on the wall all the way up to the iron curtain rod, from which hung no more than the last charred threads of tapestry. Small mercy that there had been no other furnishings in the direct line of your Thu’um, that the blankets or pillows hadn’t caught. You thanked Stendarr anyway.

Flushed with shame, you pushed a small cabinet over to the wall and stood on it to take down the rod. You scrubbed the thing clean in the tub of cold water left over from your bath, then wiped the wall as well as possible with your own shirt. (It was the only shirt you had to your name, since you could hardly count the ones loaned with this chamber, but could you leave the mess for the servants? Hardly.) Soot came off; black stains remained.

Even with all that to do, you had more than enough time to spend pacing and fretting uselessly. By the sun, it was probably noon before someone knocked on your door.

Only knowledge that you would make things worse by refusing to open the door gave you the strength to answer it. You weren’t sure what you were expecting—a guard? Jorleif? Stormcloak himself?—but it wasn’t the elderly Nord servant with a tray of food and an embroidered bonnet whose ruffle came only as high as your breastbone.

“Good morning, sir,” she said, squinting up at you. “We missed you at the morning meal, so I’ve brought you something to eat. Pardon me saying, but goodness, you’re tall.”

“Are you certain you’re not short?” was what slipped out through sheer force of habit, because you had lived in this land all your life and Nords never ceased to comment on a man’s height if it came with pointed ears. “I mean. I—thank you.”

“I’ll put it on the table, shall I?”

Still trying to swallow nausea, you stood back to let her.

“Oh, laundry. Excellent of you, sir,” she said, briskly gathering up the clothing you’d left folded neatly on the wardrobe at the foot of the bed. “Anything else I can do?”

“I’m very sorry about the tapestry,” you blurted, unable to contain it any longer. “I—you don’t have to launder those, I was about to—I’m leaving shortly.”

She squinted harder at you. “Pardon, sir, but the steward said you’d be here a while.”

“I…” Uselessly, you waved a hand at the blackened wall, but it was insufficient to indicate all your shortcomings. She still seemed not to comprehend. “It’s become apparent that I can’t— I shouldn’t stay. I hardly want to… be an inconvenience.”

“Oh. Because of the screaming?” she asked, as if it were nothing more consequential than _because of the weather_.

Choked with shame, you nodded.

She _tsk_ ed, and the noise suddenly rendered you meek and her as commanding as any of the grandmothers in your village despite her servant’s linen. “You’re hardly the first to wake us up like that, sir,” she told you, nothing but frank, “and you won’t be the last. Too many soldiers around here for that.”

Faintly, you said, “Oh.”

“So you’ll be staying, then,” she announced cheerfully. Your nod was stunned cooperation rather than agreement. “Lovely. I’ll have a boy up to take the tub.” She took your laundry folded over her arm and the bare curtain rod tucked under it, and bobbed her head at you with in all the curtsy an old woman’s joints could manage as she left.

You stared at the closed door in mute bafflement for several full minutes, trying to process the encounter, before you remembered that there was food on the table. Still distracted, though, you chewed through it more slowly than you had eaten anything in weeks.

What a startling thing it was, the way an old woman could erase your shame like it was nothing. And you _believed_ that it was nothing to her, because her acceptance seemed to come out of competence and experience rather than pity. She simply had no time for scorn, and no naivety left to shock.

You were not the first she has seen. Not the last. ( _Who else?_ you wondered.)

Tentatively, you considered the idea that you might be not be so broken after all. You might be fine.

The second night, you woke up not screaming but moaning into the pillow, and you lay there half-suffocated by linens soaked in fear-sweat, shaking too violently to get up. It was a struggle to drag yourself over the edge of the mattress to puke up the remainder of dinner’s flatbread and fish into your chamber pot. The stickiness of sweat stayed on you all day afterward.

It didn’t rouse the guards, but it put paid to your stupid optimism that you might ever get free of the dungeon.

So you have stayed, but you don’t know why. The servants bring you two meals a day, and you eat, but there is no purpose to your existence in this chamber high above Windhelm. The rest of the palace may as well not exist for all you see of it, which is nothing. What would you even do if you set foot out of your room?

Oat porridge and boiled bird’s eggs. Rye bread, venison stew, and ale.

What _can_ you do, even? Kill a dragon? Kill _Alduin_? Your last and only lead on the World-Eater ended in your capture at the Embassy, and now—because you told them—

Porridge and windfall apples, too bruised to store for winter. Bread, cabbage, fresh cod, and ale.

You pace, and sit, and sleep restlessly, and pace even more restlessly. You stare at the wall for hours. You go through every drawer and cupboard in the room.

Even if you find yourself able to leave, it will be nearly impossible to travel without money for new gear and supplies. Your thorough search turns up a double handful of coins: copper pennies lost and unlooked for because they were hardly worth the effort (to this chamber’s last noble guest, at least), and a smaller number of silver and gold septims, these ones mostly abandoned in a drawer because they’ve been clipped. There are two septims that have been trimmed down so many times that they might, together, contain enough gold for one new coin. You can imagine some noble flicking them out of his purse in annoyance. You do the same with cut coin, but always kept yours in a pouch on your belt—‘bandit bait,’ your father called it, coin you wouldn’t much mind surrendering in exchange for the easy way out of a bad situation. (Your actual purse was kept in your thigh quiver. But it’s long gone by now.)

So you’re not completely broke, but it’s hardly enough to keep you alive for long. And a purse full of naught but clipped coin might actually get you arrested—shouted out of a shop at best. Having next to nothing is more bitter than having nothing, because it almost feels like hope.

Porridge and _skyr_. Bread, bitter greens, salted herring, and ale.

From the bottom of one wardrobe your search also turns up a silver-backed looking glass, its reflection so clear and sharp that you’re horrified anew at the red scars warping your mouth. Worse, you can see what you missed when looking into the rippling stream outside your cave: white lightning scars that crawl up the right side of your throat and the corner of your jaw, faint but present. _Visible_. Something you cannot conceal beneath your robes.

Supper’s ale doesn’t get you nearly drunk enough. You are miserable but not churlish enough to ask old Hjanna for more.

Porridge and buttered bread.

When someone knocks on your door—three polite taps—it takes you several long moments to rouse yourself from dull half-sleep. The sunlight coming through the window suggests that it’s barely noon, nowhere near time for the evening meal, so you stare at the door until the knock comes again. That time it jolts you into action. You stumble over to the door, tugging creases out of your shirt.

Ulfric Stormcloak is waiting in the hall.

“Yes?” you croak, after several blank seconds.

His brows twitch together. “Good morning,” he replies.

Wincing, you echo, “Good morning.”

After a moment, he carries on as if nothing had happened. “Jorlief has reminded me that my manners as a host have been lacking,” Stormcloak tells you conversationally, with an ironic turn to his mouth. You are astonished that you merit a smile. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to speak with you sooner.”

Courtesy makes your voice work when nothing else can. “I hardly expected your attention, Jarl Stormcloak,” you say, careful with every word, careful with your tone, your expression, your body. “I—” _I am so sorry that I scream in the night_. “I assure you that being here is entirely enough for me.”

“I hope you’ve been comfortable,” he replies, still with that light tone. As if solicitous inquiry of burdensome guests is as normal to Ulfric Stormcloak as running his war.

Somehow his slaying of the High King had given you the impression that he didn’t care terribly for hospitality. And _certainly_ this is nothing like the last conversation you had with him. But what do you know—about Stormcloak, or about nobles in general? Perhaps this _is_ ordinary for people who have managed to obtain the hospitality of a Jarl.

“Oh, yes,” you agree immediately. The entire exchange is surreal—a fiction vastly removed from the reality of your life here, yet one that both you and the Jarl are determined to maintain. “I appreciate your hospitality. Thank you for seeing me anyway. I’m sure you’re very busy.”

“Very,” he agrees, gently rueful. “But this is what I need to speak with you about.”

The other shoe drops. Your throat closes. “Ah.” What does that _mean_? He needs to speak to you about his business? Is this how he tells you that you cannot stay, you are too disruptive? Does he mean—

“I need your help,” he says. Normality. Surreality.

Startled, you let something acridly like a laugh scrape out of your throat. It punctures the pretense of normalcy. To Stormcloak’s querying brow, despite the instinct telling you not to be self-deprecating when your value is already so tenuous to him, you grate out, “I don’t know how much good I am for that.”

“I think you can help with this,” he asserts.

In the face of Stormcloak’s smooth confidence, you cannot disagree: _No, no, I am quite useless, I am entirely broken, I cannot help you_. It sounds over-modest. Worse, it sounds ungrateful. You will simply have to go along, even if you’re already bracing for the brunt of his disappointment.

“As you like,” you murmur, ducking your head.

You can’t see whatever expression crosses his face, but after a moment of hesitation—why?—Stormcloak wordlessly gestures with a hand and heads down the hall. Swallowing hard, you follow him with your eyes still down. Hjanna and her frank acceptance are one thing, but the palace guards are another. They are strong and competent and… and they know you are not. They have heard.

This is the first time you have left your chamber since setting foot in it. You’re not sure whether it’s that or the fact that you’re in the company of the Jarl that makes you feel as if every eye you pass is staring at you. The halls and low-ceilinged stairs are unfamiliar. The sleeves of your borrowed shirt are too short. You are exposed.

And your thrice-damned hair is still _unkempt_. Clean, now, but untied and uncombed since the previous day.

The room Stormcloak leads you to is three floors down, thick-doored and small-windowed. It’s still too high up to jump from, even if you could pry the hardwood lattice from the glass. These would be— _should_ be—irrelevant, paranoid thoughts, except that there are two more Nords waiting inside the room for you and your heart is cowardly. One is occupied with sorting a sheaf of papers that look out of place in his big, battle-scarred hands, and the other is bear-cloaked and gruff. Aggressive with an axe, if you remember correctly. So terribly pitiless. _False kings. Let them burn_.

No. Look at the table, Lleros: ink and quills and parchment and ale. Look at the walls: tapestries and map cubbies. They’d hardly spill blood on rugs like these. Calm down.

“Yrsarald, Galmar,” says Stormcloak, nodding to each in turn. “This is the Dragonborn. Dragonborn: Yrsarald Thrice-Pierced, one of my commanders, and Galmar Stone-Fist, my housecarl.”

Yrsarald grins broadly, and warmth reaches his eyes; Galmar nods, and it does not.

“Yrsarald’s been waiting forever to meet you,” says the housecarl.

“Please, sit down,” Stormcloak urges, taking his own seat halfway down the table. He pulls the jug of ale towards himself and pours. Look, see how casual he is; among the highest ranking men in Eastmarch, everyone is equal and you are among friends, are you not? It makes your scalp prickle.

You comply. You accept the ale pushed in your direction and carefully say, “Thank you.”

“I hate to ask for your help in these circumstances,” Stormcloak says. His face is grave but open, and he leans forward as if to draw you in. So unlike the hard distrust you saw last time! You cannot look him in the eye for long. “But circumstances are never what we’d like.”

You grip your mug hard and stare into it. “I still don’t know if I can help.”

“You can do better than anyone else I know of.” But he pauses, taking a sip of his ale instead of telling you what he wants.

Comply. “With what?” you force out, obliging the unspoken pressure to participate.

Very quietly, Stormcloak says, “I have been told that you were captured by the Thalmor.”

“Dragonborn?”

Ears ringing, you turn to stare at Yrsarald. You suddenly realize you don’t know how long you were silent, but all three men are staring back at you. Did you mis-hear something?

 _Comply_ , Lleros. The corners of your mouth strain into a smile. “And?”

Impatiently, Galmar says, “And you must know something about where you were held.”

This time you feel your chest seize up, your breath stutter. The ringing in your ears gets louder. “You want information,” is what slips out of your mouth, and despite the fact that you _knew_ this was coming, you can’t stop yourself from sounding small and betrayed.

“I need your help,” Stormcloak insists.

“You want to ask me questions.”

No, no—calm down, breathe. For Azura’s sake, don’t panic—not here, not _now_. But your voice is cracking  and your hands are trembling and you _know_ they can see it.

 _Stupid_ , so stupid. Of course Stormcloak wants information from you. What else could he want? What’s the use of courting allegiance from an elf too broken to defend himself on the road, let alone fight a war?

“I want you to draw a _map_ ,” he says. “I have no questions.”

“We have questions,” Galmar interrupts, attempting none of Stormcloak’s reassurance.

The Jarl throws Galmar an irate glance, a sudden and dangerous fracture in his pacifying air. Your eyes bounce from one to the other. You can’t pick a threat to focus on.

“And you are the only one who can help us,” Stormcloak carries on, attempting to recover his soothing demeanor. His eyes are so _intense_. “Listen to me. I’m not asking what the Thalmor wanted with you. This is about the men and women who’ve been taken from their villages, their beds, their families—good, honest Nords, whose only crime was being faithful. So many of them have been taken, and we don’t know where. Nobody who has gone has ever returned—except you. All I want to do is bring them home.”

 _This_ is what you remembered. There’s a resonance to his voice, a thread of reverberation down so deep that it’s almost inaudible. Or maybe it is inaudible, and all you feel is the way it goes down your spine: a breath of buried instinct that says _watch this one_. The faintest echo of what you felt when a Greybeard speaks, when a dragon bellows its challenge into the sky. It catches like a fishhook in your brain, and it’s the distraction that pulls you down from the jittery edge of panic, not his words. You can’t recall Stormcloak’s actual words.

One breath. Two breaths.

“I’m sorry,” you say, genuinely grieved, “but I don’t think I can help you. I—”

Galmar scoffs heavily. Stormcloak’s face darkens. “This is not about the _war_. It’s about making this land free of invaders who think themselves above the law, kidnappers that come in the night, that—”

“I saw so little of anything beyond my cell,” you force out, a little too loudly. It quiets the Jarl, but not in the way you’d expected. There is no trace of irritation at your discourtesy, just the stillness of a startled elk: alerted, watchful, waiting. “I’m sorry.”

He does not need to convince you now, to be appeasing or strident or passionate, and so, softly: “Any little thing could be of use.”

So. So. You will give them information. You don’t care if it helps Stormcloak win his war, or lose it; it’s not about offering him your allegiance. It’s about giving him a better swing at the Thalmor. If he has the men and the mad bravery to think he can take them on, he’s welcome to try.

“It was underground,” you say, when you have ordered the words. “There were no windows. I don’t know how long. Three months, I calculated. Afterward. In that time, there were… there were seven others.” A memory makes you wince. “Maybe eight. There was—screaming. Upstairs. She was never brought down.”

“Who?” asks Galmar.

That’s not what you had planned to tell them next. You have to re-think, re-order. “Not your faithful Nords. Well—one that they asked about local shrines. Two wood elves. A Legionary…ex-Legion, I think. The chandler from the Blue Palace.”

You know this because the chandler said it every morning, every night, every chance he got, as if his position might save him. Then they made him stop saying it. Then he stopped saying anything: an apoplexy on the rack took his speech, and the Ambassador couldn’t bring it back. He went down the hole. She was… frustrated.

Before you can manage to re-order your thoughts in a safer direction, Galmar interrupts again. “What did they want with them all?”

You flinch, hiss. _What do you want from me? I haven’t done anything. What do you_ want _? What do you_ — “They asked—mostly about the past. History. Did you know this person in the army. When did you come from Valenwood. They thought, they accused everyone of being—”

 _Blades_. Reflex grabs you by the throat before you say it. You told—oh, you told the Ambassador. Eventually, you told. But there were weeks before then—maybe a month, maybe you were strong and stupid enough for that—when all you had was the conviction to hold your tongue

“—spies.” Your hesitation is blatant. By the expression on Galmar’s face, he noticed. Stormcloak watches you carefully, but his face is still quiet, locked. He is not the danger here. Or if he is, you can’t see it coming.

A little wildly, you go on, “Except the chandler. Him, they asked about the Jarl. About the King.” A brittle laugh. “Was he a Talos worshipper. Did Elisif still. Where. How.”

“Was he?”

“Galmar,” Stormcloak warns.

“Yes,” you croak. “Yes, he—he had an amulet. Jarl Elisif asked me, would I take it. The shrine by Whiterun, where they—”

“I didn’t ask you that. Answer my questions, and only my questions. Don’t speak unless I—”

You are covering your mouth with a hand, nails digging into your cheek. The Nords are staring. Nobody said anything. Certainly nobody with an Alinor accent. You are here, now. This room in the Palace of the Kings. Look: windows, marbled with ice. Look: carpets.

“So you didn’t see any of our men there.”

“Stormcloaks. No. The soldiers, they didn’t—it was all local people. The room was small. Three cells. They didn’t keep anyone more than… a week, two weeks. Short. Then. Put them down the hole. Or—no, the Tribune, they took him somewhere else. It took—he took a long time. Too long, I think.”

“Where did they take him?”

“ _Galmar_.”

You can’t feel your body. Your chest is painfully tight, every breath uncomfortably ragged. But you can, you _have to_ control this. “I don’t know! Do you think they told me, do you think I—I don’t know. I’m sorry, please, I don’t—”

“But they didn’t take you,” Galmar muses, eyes narrow. A bear, him. Pitiless. He has his teeth in your throat and Stormcloak cannot make him let go. “Not in three months. What did they want from you?”

The next breath you take comes in an uncontrollably loud wheeze. There is no air in it. There is no air in the world. There is—no—no breath, no blood in your veins, just a numb prickling and the clutch of your chest around a heart trying to implode. And Galmar—the Ambassador is— she wants—

Yrsarald’s quill hits the table. Ink spatters. He reaches. “Dragonborn—”

“I’m—sorry,” you gasp, between rattling breaths that you cannot stop, cannot curb, breaths like you’ve been running non-stop for hours. And you have, haven’t you? Days and weeks since escaping the Embassy, you've run yourself to ground like a frightened rabbit, out of your mind with panic and survival instinct gone wrong, trembling, tasting blood at the back of your throat.

You put a clawed hand on the table—brace yourself—hold Galmar off—and you _still have no air_. Your eyes have welled up, spilled over. Salt in your mouth. Blinded. Everything is far off down a dark tunnel: the Embassy, the reeking cave, the urgency of Stormcloak’s voice from afar. “I can’t— I can’t—”

All you see through the blurred and narrow tunnel is Galmar standing up. You bolt upright, gulp the biggest breath you can, and bark, “ _FEIM!”_

The pressure of the world vanishes. Swaying, you stumble back _through_ your chair before it has a chance to finish clattering to the floor. You’re still wheezing helplessly, but there is no air in this void echo of the world—or rather, you are a thin shadow that has no need of air. You can clamp a hand over your mouth and pinch your nose shut and _smother_ until your chest stops clutching convulsively for breath.

Everyone at the table is standing, even if you can only see them as dim shapes. You cannot face them. Dizzy and sick to your stomach, you stagger _away_ —just away, anywhere. It’s the wrong side of the room: there is no door here. There is a corner. You stumble up against the wall, huddle into the corner so close that your forehead nearly touches the wall. Your shoulder leans through the wall, but it’s denser than the chair was, thick and old, and the bone of a mountain is somehow real enough even to your scraped-paper shade-self that you only slide through partway. You feel the stone in your shoulder—your shoulder in the stone—cold, cold. Solid. Stable.

Facing the wall, you try to pretend that there is nobody else in the room, and you try to breathe. Now that your lungs aren’t screaming for air, feeding the cycle of panic and panting, you manage to get them under control. The trembling keeps on.

Inevitability and the limits of your power start pulling you back into focus with the rest of the world. The empty ghost world slips through your fingers like sand; the stone rejects your shoulder. Unwillingly, you fade back into your flesh, sick and damaged and weighted heavy. You can feel the nausea more acutely now, and the snot on your face from the crying jag you barely remember. Attempting to make it look innocuous, you scrub your face with a too-short sleeve.

Cough. Gasp. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Eventually the shaking goes, and the dizziness. The room is still so quiet: a while back, when you were still struggling for air, you dimly recall hearing Stormcloak snap-snarling at Galmar behind you, but they may as well have been miles away. Now the only sound is the scratch of quill on parchment and the occasional sipping of ale, conspicuous in the silence.

You cannot stand here pretending to hide forever. Unlike last night, there is no door between you and the Jarl.

Deliberate about your breathing, you tug your shirt straight and turn back to the table. Blessed Stendarr’s mercy, nobody is looking at you. Galmar is considering his ale, and Stormcloak a page of notes that Yrsarald has been producing. They have benevolence enough to let you pretend. You sit in the chair that someone has carefully lifted back upright, take your ale and drink, swallow heavily to wash down the tear-salt and the burn of humiliation.

“As Jarl Ulfric said,” says Yrsarald casually, sliding a piece of parchment toward you without looking, “a map would be very useful to us. If that was easier. Even a rough sketch of the landmarks you passed as you… left.”

“Not the inside of the building?”

“If you know it. A location would be better, though.”

“Oh,” you say, a hacked half-laugh. “The Thalmor Embassy.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see a flicker of movement from Stormcloak; however, he’s back to watchful stillness when you glance. Galmar shifts in his seat but remains silent.

So. You answer no more questions; instead you draw, and you talk haltingly. The outline of the dungeon is sharpest, accurate to the dimensions you know so well, with the chest of transcribed confessions and information marked by an X. The rest of the Embassy is sketchier, but with the pen you make your way back up the stairs and into the light the way you never did in real life.

“There is—this is—the Ambassador works here. Her desk.”

Breathe. Breathe. Move on.

“Here. The courtyard takes just under sixty seconds to run across, for a man trying to be reasonably quiet.”

“That’s very precise.”

“My invisibility potion lasted just long enough.”

Back through the barracks, the servants’ private halls. The gates, the security. You wrack your memory to produce an approximation of the winding trail down the mountainside, estimated distances and directions jotted in the margins.

“They sent a cart for us just outside of Solitude, but the night was clear. I watched the stars, and tried to count the time it was taking… although with the horse pulling uphill, I could be off.”

“It’s good,” Yrsarald says distractedly, his own quill scratching. “There are no official records of the Embassy’s location.”

“You were invited up there?” Galmar asks, his tone almost neutral. It’s the first thing he’s said in a long time, and it makes you flinch. Gods, how does he always fix on the worst thing?

Can you keep control? Maybe. Maybe if you pretend it doesn’t matter, and not that you want to vomit at the memory of your rash, stupid self thinking that you could just waltz right in there with a forged invitation, that you were brilliant and invulnerable, that you could outwit the best intelligence network in the known world and just—just _walk out again_. You did this to _yourself_. You—

You fix a careful smile in place. “I was invited. It was fake, the invitation, but. I did very much intend to go in. I just didn’t leave as soon as I’d planned to.”

In the air, the joke sounds light and easy, like it didn’t cost you a thing, like you don’t wake screaming in the night. Fake, so fake. But your smile barely wobbles, and it’s remarkably easier to say it like this than to confess, _I thought I could get away with it. I was wrong. She was never fooled. It was my own fault_.

“What did you—” Down the table, Stormcloak stops himself. He looks baffled, alarmed, frustrated in turn. Yet he doesn’t finish the question, so you don’t answer it, the dangerous trail that leads to your motivations, to Delphine. Betraying her once was enough.

“There are archery blinds all along the road,” you say, going back to your map. “In the trees. Bosmer design, almost impossible to shoot through or burn out.”

“How can you tell they’re Bosmer?”

“It’s all living wood, nothing cut or nailed. I’ve—I’ve seen them before.” You stop yourself from volunteering Anoriath and Elrindir’s names. The sudden memory of your hunting friends is unexpectedly cheering: you never gave them up, even though the Thalmor might have liked to know about immigrants from Valenwood with… vague pasts.

(You didn’t tell because you were never asked about them. How horrible is it that this is your bar for ‘cheerful’?)

“We couldn’t take troops up that road, then,” Stormcloak muses, staring at the map.

“No,” you agree. “Uphill, against archers—they wouldn’t make it. But there is… no, I’m sorry. You probably couldn’t take troops that way either.”

Stormcloak’s sudden look is sharp. Sharper, you think, than he means it to be. “I should like to hear about it anyway.”

You tell them about the bodies, the hole, the reeking cave and its gluttonous occupant. You do not tell them that the time it took you to kill the frost troll so Etienne and Malborn could escape was the delay that cost you your freedom. Nonetheless, your hand seems to remember (the snap of the bowstring, the lightning that struck you from behind), because it trembles. Then it spasms without warning, a hard clutch and tremor of muscle that jerks the quill hard across the parchment.

Yrsarald begins, “Are you...” just as your hand seizes again, more violently. The quill drops, blotching ink across the map.

With a curse, you try to withdraw your hand. The bigger muscles of your arm respond sluggishly, numbness and pain spiking through. You have to grab hold of your tremoring fingers with your left hand and yank your arm off the table. Embarrassed, you hold your hand tightly fisted in your lap, left hand trying to crush the shakes out of it, and watch Yrsarald save the map.

“I can draw,” Yrsarald offers, already taking up the quill. You could almost believe he saw nothing wrong. Kicked-dog kindness again. As wary as it makes you, you cannot turn it down.

“The cave comes out the side of the mountain below the Embassy,” you say. “There was a trail in, but faint. By the tracks it was just from the troll. And…”

You went down the mountain—no directions, no distances, just down as fast as you could. (It took eight hours of daylight and the night besides. No sleep.) Eventually you hit a path, but cut across it for fear of visibility to your pursuit. At one point, the spires of the Blue Palace were… to your left, perhaps. You went right. (The guards would have handed you back the moment the Thalmor asked.) South, it must have been, maybe south-west.

“I got to the shore of the Karth River. I don’t know how far inland, but it was salty, still, when I drank. I. I slept. Then I swam across it. I came across somewhere near the edge of the marshes, but with the tides… I could have drifted any distance from the other side. I don’t know.”

Can you stop now? Is this enough for the Jarl? You’ve done so little, yet you’re exhausted.

You watch blearily as Galmar pulls over a map of Haafingar and the three of them consult over it. Yrsarald’s disagreement about landmarks and the scale leads to a second map being procured, dusty and crackling vellum. Your mouth is dry and your cup is empty, but you don’t dare reach for the jug of ale, not when their attention is finally elsewhere.

Finally, Yrsarald marks in several areas with careful charcoal: somewhere up in the mountains above Solitude and then down by the river. A shading of space connects them. On the map, your path of flight looks so small, easily traversed. No briars, no broken shale, no bitter winds. Surreality.

“Would you say this looks accurate?”

“I… it could be. I’m sorry.”

“No,” Yrsarald says, with such astonishing warmth. “Thank you. You were a great help. We wouldn’t have this without you.”

His smile-crinkled eyes are terrible. His gratitude fills you, satiates some starving part of you in a deep way, then repulses you with the warring recollection that this kindness is an attempt to buy your compliance, perhaps even your loyalty. You settle for a close-lipped nod that makes Yrsarald’s smile falter just a touch.

“Sifnar’s bringing food,” Galmar announces, already having spoken to a servant at the door. “And ale. About time.”

It’s not quite a dismissal, but it’ll do as an pretext to leave. You slide your chair back, carefully this time. “Ah. Yes. I’ll… excuse me.”

Surprisingly, it’s Stormcloak’s puzzled voice that stops you halfway to the door. “Wait. Where are you going?”

You hadn’t expected to be challenged in retreat. It makes your heart squeeze with the first creeping edge of dread. “I’ll leave you to your meal.”

For a moment you fear he’s going to get up, but Jarls do not rise for anybody. Instead, he gestures back to your chair. “It’s not my intent to use you for information and then send you away,” he says slowly. “You are welcome to stay.”

Now that you finally look at him again, his face seems tighter than it was before. Hollower, maybe. More tired for certain. But with his eyes, he’s still trying to catch and hold you.  Does he know how to _not_ look upon a thing without the intent to pin it for his inspection and see inside it?

The better, more frightening question: Is this an offer or an order? Here under Ulfric Stormcloak’s roof and wing, are you really free to say no?

You hesitate over the answer for too long, half terrified by your own daring contemplation of refusal. Then you are decided by the other half, which is disgusted that you think it daring to even _consider_ declining.

“No,” you say at last. _Thank you_ almost comes out, but you clip it because if you’re going to test him, you may as well commit to it. And Stormcloak is…

Disappointed. You’ve been so well trained to spot the slightest traces of irritation or frustration in others’ faces, and you see none of it here. His jaw fixes, his shoulders drop slightly. His eyes shutter.

“Very well,” he says, breaking his stare. Dismissing you.

So. So.

You can refuse.

“Yes,” you say, as if you hadn’t answered earlier, and go back to draw out your chair again. The surprise that flashes across Stormcloak’s face is deeply, genuinely gratifying. It is not false. “Thank you.”


	6. Ulfric (2)

It’s not nearly time for the evening meal, but the plan called for Sifnar to bring in food as a distraction, noontide or not. This part of the plan, at least, seems to work: the Dragonborn’s stifled, twitching silence eases just a _little_ once Sifnar and a maid provide the room with a safe disruption of platters and jugs and tableware. Just as well that it works, because Galmar thoroughly put paid to the part of the plan that involved keeping calm and _unthreatening_ during the… discussion.

As everyone fills their plates, you and Galmar keep up a safe and familiar discussion about the mead that Sifnar uncorks: Black-Briar, four years old, not the Reserve, with an aftertaste of something marshy that you think the bees weren't supposed to take nectar from, though Galmar doesn't care, mead is mead as long as it's strong. You fill cups and pass them.

You carefully don’t watch but still see the Dragonborn taking food like it’s about to be snatched from him, little darting pulls from every platter near to him. He has two kinds of bread, three cheeses, and a bit of braised leek; all the meat is an arm’s length farther away and he refuses to reach, to stretch out beyond his huddle. You pass Yrsarald the platter of cold chicken, which he hates, so that he will grimace and set it aside. Thirty seconds later, once Yrsarald’s attention is elsewhere, the Dragonborn gingerly takes.

Your pity is condescending, ugly. The hunched grey scrap with its flickering eyes and shaking hands is uglier.

You pass another plate.

Galmar catches your eye. He has noticed as well.

“Cheese,” he says, his voice feasting-hall brusque, hand out. The Dragonborn visibly startles, then hands a plate over, ducked head and nervous eyes. You shuffle down a basket of harvest fruit: making room on your end for the cheese. There’s no kindness to this method of drawing the elf into interaction, but no cruelty either. It could be worse. It’s better than your damned locked jaw, anyway.

(You have nothing but questions, but there's even less kindness in them and your gut is leaden with the cruelty you've already done him. Anyway, it would ruin his tenuous trust of you. You can't ask now.)

Yrsarald manages the drawing-in slightly better a minute later. Into a pause in conversation, he asks, “Not fond of those?” because the elf has been regarding the jazbay grapes on his plate dubiously.

The elf jerks, gives a nervous tic of a smile. “I’ve never actually eaten them before,” he admits after a moment. “I never... They were always more valuable as alchemy ingredients.”

“Oh, so you’re an alchemist, then?”

His thin dark face pinches up now that everyone’s attention is suddenly on him again, and, worse, Yrsarald is still asking direct questions. It grates on you more than it should that evidently neither he nor Galmar can heed your instruction not to _interrogate_. (Do they really know, though? Do they think questions can be made harmless if the tone and topic are friendly enough?) But a few choked heartbeats later, the Dragonborn visibly overcomes his tension and manages an answer.

“I… apprenticed for six years,” he says slowly. “When I was younger.” The tip of his chin, the quick sharp breath: his attempts to fortify himself are so obvious. It’s _painful_ to watch, this fingernail-clinging to the pretense of calm. His flashes his strained smile again. “I’m a better alchemist than a healer, but a better farmer than an alchemist.”

Yrsarald doesn’t have to fake his booming laugh. He has for months been genuinely excited to meet the Dragonborn, and none of Galmar’s griping about the blasphemy of a greyskin Dragonborn had seemed to do anything to scrape the shine off Yrsarald’s eagerness. Apparently, neither have even the elf’s own brutally evident failings. “And a better warrior than all three of those, if you can kill dragons the way they say you do!” he says.

Any Nord would take that as the invitation to tell tales that it is. The elf’s mouth pulls in a sardonic curl— unintentionally, you think, because he erases the expression a moment later and makes a vague, grateful murmur for the praise.

Galmar interrupts, “A farmer?”

The Dragonborn’s chin tips again: a slight tic upwards, a steeling of the spine. His hand comes up, grasps uneasily at his collar, then drops back to his lap when it finds nothing but shirt. “Like my father,” he says, evenly enough. “And I would say… not a warrior. More of a hunter.”

“With bigger prey these days, no doubt,” Yrsarald says, a slight uncertain cast to his grin. Ah, so now he sees. This time, the hook for a story bounces clean off the elf, who winces and looks away.

You studiously examine a grape of your own, then bite it neatly off the fork. Clean, controlled motions. Carefully meaningless conversation. “I’ve never known what they were any good for in alchemy. The vines all belong to the Hold, of course, and we sell most of each year’s crop, but they’re common enough to be food as often as ingredients.”

Too quickly, the elf agrees, “Oh, yes. Eastmarch produces almost eighty percent of Skyrim’s annual jazbay crop.”

At your raised eyebrow, he stiffens and ducks his head. It's a frustrating mark of his fragility: it wasn't your intent to chastise. Dark hair curtains his face. For a moment you think he’s going to clam up entirely, but then he goes on.

“I mean—my father keeps careful track of the provincial markets, the competition.” A breathiness to his voice suggests the effort it takes to force words out, to continue playing the part. “The farm… we grow herbs, not wheat. Alchemical ingredients. He has to know the demand, the way it affects price. What we plant each year. He's been doing double sowings of blue mountain flower since—since the war started. Succession plantings for a steady supply, two weeks apart. And...”

As he speaks, the elf gets darker and darker in the face, though you noticed it first on the point of the ear that juts out from his curtain of untied hair because knived ears have always been a snag for your attention. You realize that the steady, alarming purpling of his skin is a flush—embarrassment? strain?—at about the same moment he seems to realize that he’s not conversing but spouting rustic agricultural trivia to an audience of politely confused soldiers. (Less than politely, in Galmar's skeptical-faced case.)

“And alchemically speaking, jazbay largely affects magicka,” the Dragonborn finishes, his voice nearly a whisper. “Perhaps not surprising you’re unfamiliar with it. Most people are.”

He hides himself behind his mead, drinking deep to keep his mouth shut.

“I suppose they need that sort of thing up at the College,” says Galmar. You know his dismissive tone, and this is not it: this is too cutting still, too searching. “If you learned your healing from the witches and elves up there, I mean.”

“I did, no thanks to you.”

That sudden flash of defiance makes everyone at the table look at him again. Flushed, he buys another few seconds with drinking. It marks a kind of weakness unfamiliar to you, an inclination to hiding and capitulation that makes you crawlingly uncomfortable. You don't like that sort of behaviour in any man, but it's worse in the Dragonborn. You hardly know what to do when you can't dispense with it with a few sharp words or a disgusted dismissal.

“Meaning no disrespect, of course,” the elf says more carefully, now slipped back into meekness, compliance. “But when the war broke out, my parents asked me to leave my studies and return home, for Effra's sake. What with Winterhold being so close to... potential conflict.”

“Pity,” Yrsarald says, sliding a look side-long at Galmar. “Skyrim needs more healers.”

The elf almost chokes with laughing into his mead. The twist of his mouth once he's drained his cup is _vicious_.

You move the conversation on before Galmar prods again at that emotional abscess. You know _why_ he's doing it, of course, but you don't want it done now—and you _don't_ want Yrsarald and Galmar polarizing against each other over the Dragonborn the way Asda and Bjorn did. It's simple enough to monopolize a few minutes with speculation on the state of the roads and bridges and wolf populations, even if you never truly leave off contemplating the thought of a healer unable to mend his own injuries. How helpless does _that_ feel?

On his quiet end of the table, the Dragonborn runs a nervous hand across his collarbones again, grasping for what is not there, fingers trembling slightly. The turn of his wrist exposed by a short sleeve is achingly vulnerable, and not just because of the thick band of scar tissue that encircles it, a manacle in imprint.

Your shoulder aches. You breathe. You fill the Dragonborn's cup and don't touch your own.

It 's remarkable how quickly it gets difficult to carry on a conversation that isn't about the war. Even when talking about the weather, your thoughts veer naturally to winter's effect on supply lines, budgeting, troop movements... but not in front of the elf. Skyrim being Skyrim, at least the weather can still occupy old Nords for a good while. It's likely the most inane conversation you've had with your commanders in months.

Galmar swears by his grandmother's method of foretelling winters. Yrsarald reminds everyone of the time Galmar got a mudcrab attached to his nethers while he was busy checking the thickness of the wall of a beaver's lodge. Much as that memory makes your mouth twitch, you needle Yrsarald back about his superstitions over rune-casting. He asks, speaking of grandmothers, if your knee has been aching yet.

Weather. War wounds: the superficial ones, the amusing ones. Then war stories: children's stories, really, about old familiar sparring accidents and hunting trips gone wrong and training ring gossip that only skirts the edge of military talk. Marketplace news and murmurs.

The elf, eating quietly, always with his head down and his eyes glancing up from under dark lashes, flickering—his right hand trembling spasmodically every so often—

Until Yrsarald adds on the tail end of his story, “And I meant to ask, Dragonborn.” The elf sits sharply upright. “Have you _heard_ any of these songs about yourself?”

“ _Divines_ ,” the elf groans, slumping back. He takes a drink so perfectly mimed to communicate exasperation—a reaction ordinary, easy, unfractured—that you give it the responding chuckle it deserves.

(You wonder: _How many Divines? Eight or nine? And what does an elf swear by them for?_ )

“I'll take that as a yes, then.”

“I don't know whether to feel honoured or inadequate,” the Dragonborn drawls. His voice is noticeably mead-slackened. “To hear it said, you'd think I was ten feet tall and made of steel.”

“Not fond of them?” Yrsarald asks.

“I like the old ones, I suppose.”

“The Dragonborn Comes,” Galmar guesses.

He snorts. “I never really liked it, not even as a boy. What an irony, eh? Now, the Tale of the Tongues...”

“That _is_ old,” Yrsarald says. “I wouldn't have expected you of all people to know it.”

Ire flashes sudden and hot across the Dragonborn's face, and you find yourself thinking, _There_ , there _—_ as he asks, “Why not?”

“Hm?”

“Why _wouldn't_ I, of all people, know it?”

The edge of his voice is a trap that Yrsarald now senses. “It's old,” he repeats, after a moment.

You know the real answer: It's old and it's _Nordic_ , a song you grew up hearing once a year on Honour's Eve, among all the other stories to praise heroes of near-forgotten times. The holiday is a quiet and dusty one, most of the tales even more so if the listener doesn't have enough of an education to grasp the historical background and significance of every name and deed. There's no reason an elf _should_ know the Tale of the Tongues when many of your own kinsmen don't even celebrate Honour's Eve to the full any more.

“As if the grandfathers don't still sing the old songs,” the Dragonborn says.

“ _Our_ grandfathers, maybe,” says Galmar. “Yours?”

You keep expecting the elf to fold any moment. Instead he beams falsely, unnervingly, and replies, “Oh, dead in Morrowind, I'm afraid. But the grandfathers in my village taught me history and song like I might grow up a little less grey if only I knew every line of the First Edda by heart.”

“Do you?” Yrsarald interjects, interested.

He gives a considering wave of his hand and drains the rest of his mead, reminding you where this confidence comes from. Insobriety has softened his mouth, his jaw, his tight-twisted spine—his mind too, obviously. You hesitate only a moment before reaching out to silently re-fill the elf's cup, not counting how many times this is. It passes unnoticed in his evident consultation of his own memory, red eyes upraised to the ceiling.

“A good half of it, maybe,” he concludes. “Less than I used to.”

“That's a feat, for a healer!”

“Or a farmer?” asks the Dragonborn archly.

“For nearly anyone. It took me years, myself.”

“Yrsarald is a warrior of the old school,” Galmar drawls, momentarily amused to needle at this old fault between them. “Battle and poetry both.”

Yrsarald waves him off with weathered annoyance. You follow that with a mild glance that quells Galmar, because you want to hear more out of the Dragonborn now that he's finally conversing. There's tension in your chest, your knuckles, your knee.

“Call it an old bard's fancy,” says Yrsarald, “but I'd be honoured to hear the opening lines from you.”

“Oh, I don't know. It's been years. Anyway, what do I know about it?”

“When I'm old, I want to tell my children that this is the tale as I heard the Dragonborn tell it,” Yrsarald wheedles shamelessly, which makes the elf flush and laugh, a hiccup in his throat, shaking his head. Still, it does the trick.

“Hwæt!” the Dragonborn declares, with more confidence than ever, and just for a moment he has a voice to quiet uproar and bring a feasting hall to bear on his tale. “The Spear-Men in moons gone by and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.”

“We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns,” Yrsarald joins in, grinning, and for a moment their voices are in harmony, both broadened into the same slightly archaic accent. It startles you viscerally to hear the true tones of the Old Speech on an elf’s tongue.

“I knew you had an accent,” Yrsarald breaks off to say. “Where do you come from?”

The Dragonborn grins back at him, and for a moment the cast of his anguish seems truly forgotten. “The Reach,” he says, still in a heavier tone than earlier. It’s not deliberate emulation of the Old Speech any longer but the accent of the Reach, whose people speak Trader’s Tongue more like their forefathers than any other people in Skyrim—like back when it was still actual Trader’s Tongue, not native to Nordic throats, not yet the language of the Empire and all its provinces. “To the south-east, almost in Falkreath. People said sometimes that we weren’t either Markarth’s _or_ Falkreath’s. Or the Empire’s either.” He says this last with a shrug.

“Or Skyrim’s?” you ask abruptly, allowing yourself a touch of edginess even though it will dampen the light mood Yrsarald has managed. That accent will always get beneath your skin, and so will the subject. Divines help him, but if this elf thinks the Forsworn had a right to try to rip the Reach from Nordic hands…

The Dragonborn doesn’t shrink. (The connection, the one you remember—but this is inebriation, bottle-bravery blunting his fear and the fire in his eyes. Not like it was then.) “We are Skyrim’s,” he replies, frowning. “ _I_ am Skyrim’s. When the Forsworn came, we fought them off. They wanted our village, our farms. We didn’t give them up.”

He has fallen back into the ordinary tones you’re accustomed to hearing from him: the common Plains accent, smooth as a river stone from being tumbled through Nordic and Cyrodilic throats until it comes out something like both and like neither. Like your accent, which you learned from Arngeir without realizing that your mother’s burr had vanished from your speech until it had been gone for years.

You frown back, annoyed by his claim to a _we_ that he was never part of. “You’re too young to have seen that war.”

The elf opens his mouth, then closes it. You realize your mistake— _elf_ —at the same time he asks carefully, “How old do you think I am?”

 _Elves_. Disgusted, you say, “I’m sure I don’t know.”

He raises his chin. “I’m forty-four.”

Forty-four… nearly your age. He’s smooth faced and nearly beardless despite the fact that he clearly hasn’t shaved in days; there’s not a single strand of grey picked out from the black of his hair. Even the strain and shadows of his exhaustion haven’t aged his face to anything like the truth. You’d taken him for five-and-twenty.

Swishing his mead nervously, he offers, “I was eighteen then, when you took back the city,” because you still haven’t replied. “The uprising was why I ended my alchemy apprenticeship. I—happened to come home for harvest early.” He laughs, not quite happily, and drinks. “A… friend in Markarth told me it was best that I left the city. No explanation why. By Effra, I wasn’t raised to ignore that kind of sign, so I went. I had no idea what would happen, but I went. I got home just ahead of the news that the Forsworn had taken Markarth. Never went back.” He drinks again, grimacing. “So when you came, that was the summer I learned how to kill men.”

And that was the last summer you saw for seven years.

It’s not often you have cause to regret your words, but now you do. The mood has gotten a great deal darker than you meant it to. Nobody at the table wants to reflect on the Uprising or its fallout.

It’s a relief when Yrsarald shoulders the burden yet again and drags the conversation to different grounds. “You’ve said that several times now,” he says. “Affra. Is that some sort of… dark elf god?”

You glance at him in annoyance because this topic is hardly safer. Unexpectedly, it makes the Dragonborn laugh a little. His hand does that drag across his collarbones yet again, only this time it’s a conscious action and he seems to realize that there’s nothing there.

“I keep forgetting my amulets are gone,” he mutters, picking up his cup again. “ _Effra_. She’s known to send dreams and warnings of danger. Patron saint of those who wander, particularly those who are lost.” His chuckle is dark.

“A suitable saint for a dark elf,” Yrsarald says hesitantly.

“And how I need her now,” the Dragonborn agrees, bitter but smiling widely, as if to make light of his awful admission: that he is lost, useless.

It’s a terrible joke. You wish he hadn’t said out loud what you have been trying not to think.

Galmar puts down his cup too heavily, a _clunk_ that betrays his frustration, yet you're still not fast enough to cut off his next words. “Did she lead you free of the Thalmor too, then?”

A shudder rolls through the Dragonborn. His face freezes, wild with surprise and fear. You could describe his reaction if it hadn't grabbed you right alongside him: the clutch of the throat, the stall of the heart, the whole body locking up against the unexpected slap of Galmar's words. _Now, the thing you fear; now, the thing you were trying to forget—now, talk_.

Your moment passes in a heartbeat; his goes on a good four seconds longer. Anger—at yourself, at Galmar, who has never done this to _you_ on purpose—makes your voice resonate more than it should when you utter, “ _Enough_.”

Then the Dragonborn bursts out laughing, a harsh, painful crow. You and Galmar both turn to stare at him.

“I knew it,” he says, reaching out to pick up his cup with a hand as unsteady as his grin. “I _knew_ you weren't done. I was just _waiting_ for—” He gestures at Galmar with the cup and mead sloshes over the rim. “You need to ask? You need to know? Gods, just go on, just _say_ it.”

Brutal as the swing of his axe, Galmar demands, “How did you escape?”

The Dragonborn's entire body trembles. Jaw locked in that rictus grin as if the facade is the only thing keeping him together (it _is_ ), he takes a long drink. He breathes.

“You saw it already,” he says. “The Shout. Become Ethereal. _Feim_.”

The Word vibrates in the air without acting, borne on a mere breath of his potential power. You feel it all the same: the flash, more impression than sensation, of the world's thinning. It's... _wrong_.

“That is not the Word as the Greybeards say it,” you say, leaning forward to stare down the length of the table into the Dragonborn's eyes. Beneath the table, your hand is a fist. It's too late to be kind in your search for answers, now. Fine, _fine—_ you will be cruel.

“I suppose not,” the Dragonborn says carelessly. “They didn't teach me it, I never saw them use it. I found it in a tomb, on a Wall. Two of the words. But I didn't study it, didn't...” He drinks. “To use it, I'd have had to—to tie it up with a dragon's soul, to knit the Word up with the soul's knowledge until the knowledge was part of me and I knew the power well enough to use it. I never did. I didn't think it was _useful_.”

His eyes are so _bright_.

“In the Embassy, I didn't have any unbound souls. But, well. Turns out that if you spend enough hours sitting in the dark in a cell, wishing you weren't real, it's close enough to meditation that you can gain _some_ kind of knowledge of what it is to Fade.”

He seems to _want_ to hurt you, the way he's using his words like knives, the way his eyes bore unsettlingly into you. Galmar may have started this, but now it's you he's speaking to. You don't let yourself flinch.

“And?” you say, steady-voiced.

The Dragonborn looks away abruptly, drinking. The words pour out like bile. “The guard came to feed me. Took off the—” A sharp gesture to his mouth, which is twisted and hard and scarred red at the corners. There: confirmation, and the ghostly sensation of a metal bit between your teeth, cutting into the corners of your mouth. “ _Muzzle_. And I was _cooperating_ , so. Just the one guard. He didn't expect a Shout, not—not after so long. _Ha_.”

A drink. The cup hits the table too hard, empty.

“I Shouted. Pulled out of the chains. _Through_ the chains. Got behind him just as I faded back in, took his dagger...”

His gaze has gone distant. There are a few long, deafening seconds of silence before he shakes his head slowly. Everything has drained out of him, the anger and the jittery false amusement, and in that moment he looks hollow. (And you think: What is it like to know this twisted Word, to know the Void in a way that lets him fade so far out of the world?)

“Then I took my armour,” he says, “and I left. Out the hole in the floor.” He takes a long breath that shakes and looks at Galmar. “Are you satisfied?”

“You took your armour,” Galmar repeats.

“Yes.”

“From your cell.”

“From the stand. In the corner of the dungeon. They put it there.”

“What for?”

“To _tempt_ me,” the Dragonborn snaps. “'Here, look, you could have this back. Clothes, food, wine! We could be nice, we could be kind!'”

“Weren't you already cooperating?”

The Dragonborn freezes. “What?”

Galmar speaks every word deliberately. “You said you were already cooperating. What did they have to tempt you for?”

“I didn't— no, I didn't say—”

Full of alarm, his eyes flash to you as if seeking support, confirmation that Galmar is wrong. But... but Galmar is _not_. You missed it in your distraction about the gag, the muzzle. He said he was _cooperating_.

When you frown back, his alarm boils over into full-blown panic.

The Dragonborn lurches to his feet, chair grating back on the stones. The mead hits him then. He sways heavily, almost falls. His clumsy grab at the table makes his plate clatter.

Holding the edge for support, he stares down the length of the table at you. His eyes flicker back and forth, taking in the food and the drink, you and Galmar and Yrsarald staring back at him, his empty cup and his clean-picked plate... Horror comes over him like a creeping flood, washing his face to a ghastly ash colour.

And you, despite yourself—you are stricken. You do not want to be the thing that inspires this horror.

“Cooperation,” he wheezes. “Oh, gods.”

Your sharp gesture keeps Yrsarald in his seat until the door has slammed shut behind the Dragonborn, punctuating his desperate exit.

In the silence that follows, you lean back into your chair and fold your hands and breathe, staring at the closed door. Already, as you attempt to review the events of the last hour, you find them to be a tangled web that you know will keep you up for hours in the unravelling.

Yrsarald stands at last. “I need to speak to Wuunferth,” he says, and leaves.

Galmar stretches his neck until the vertebrae crackle, then sits back to survey the table like a battlefield in the aftermath. “Well, that was a mess.”

“No doubt,” you agree, a touch coolly. “When was it you decided to abandon the plan entirely?”

Unruffled, he says, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

“He's not the enemy, Galmar.”

“How can you be so sure?”

You sigh irritably, scrubbing your face with a hand. This is not a conversation you want to have—or avoid having, rather—for the third time. Instead of answering, you pick up your cup and fill it. Despite your annoyance, you pass the bottle over without hesitation when Galmar holds out a hand for it.

You toy with the cup, not drinking because you want nothing more than to down it all. “Was I that bad?”

Galmar makes a rough noise morbidly unlike even his grinding laugh. “Worse.”

Even though you asked, you didn’t expect that answer. You throw him a _look_ , unsure if you’re insulted or unsettled.

“At least he talks.” Galmar shrugs. “You didn’t say a word.”

No, not for months, except to your superior officers during the last months of the War. In the aftermath and the madness of guilt, it had felt logical that you might have been able to take back your words of betrayal by saying absolutely nothing. Worse, every attempt to pry speech from you, no matter how benign or concerned, had felt to you just like… well. Like Elenwen’s every attempt to pry speech from you.

The reminder makes you sigh. “You need to stop asking him questions about what happened.”

Galmar’s frustration is as predictable as the fact that he would put anyone who asked such questions of you on the floor with a broken jaw. “He has intelligence that we may never see again!”

“What we have is enough,” you insist. “Anything that was time sensitive is lost. The rest can come later.” The words leave a foulness in your mouth that mead could wash away, but still you resist. It has taken twenty years to instill in yourself the self-control to avoid drinking whenever you think you _need_ it, and even now this control is difficult to maintain. The only other option, though, is to never drink at all. “They were torturing him, Galmar, not hosting him. I’m not sure he knows much more.”

“He already thinks you want to interrogate him. We already have.”

Like his axe, Galmar cuts to the heart of the matter. His exposure of what you had left unsaid makes you wince. You forget, sometimes, because Galmar is an open book to you, how little you can fool him either.

“I know. It was necessary.” You pry your thumbnail against the cup's enamel, pushing until the quick aches, threatens to tear. “But now we need to let it lie.”

“He talked of cooperation, Ulfric,” Galmar persists. “That was more than torture.”

Sometimes you loathe that Galmar provides tenacious argument against your decisions, as necessary and constructive as this voice is. You just do your best not to loathe him for being good at it. “He seems to have escaped before they could go much farther than uncoiling.”

“Seems to? Escaped? Or was released.”

“We don’t know.”

“We would if we asked him.”

A humourless smile pulls your mouth, because you have Galmar there. “As if you’d trust his word.”

Galmar mulls it in irritated silence for a while, but he’s unable to refute that truth. “So you intend to ignore the possibility that he’s a spy.”

“Ignore it? No. It just doesn’t seem likely.”

“Unlikely that an elf held captive by the Thalmor for three months could possibly have been convinced to—”

“He didn’t come to us,” you remind Galmar. “I wrote to him. They couldn’t know I’d do that.”

“He might think to buy their mercy by turning over your head on a pike,” Galmar says, switching streams easily.

“He might think to get revenge by getting _their_ heads on a pike,” you retort, just as easily.

The terrible thing is that as much as you want to believe you’re right—after all, look at the path _you_ chose—you know Galmar’s suggestion is also a real possibility. Neither of you knows the Dragonborn or the situation well enough to say for sure.

For now the argument can go nowhere. “I intend to proceed as if he isn’t a spy,” you announce, closing the matter. At Galmar’s disgruntled noise, you turn a smile on him: not genuine, but still meant to indicate that you aren’t ending the discussion in anger. Strategic, as so many of your smiles are. “And I assume you intend to proceed as if he is?”

“And an assassin.”

That much you expected. “Then between the two of us, we’ll have every possibility covered.”

Galmar grunts and lets it lie.

You've no appetite, so you retrieve Yrsarald's pages of notes and review them while Galmar finishes eating. Separately, you begin to record the facts you picked out of the second conversation, straightening out the tangle of memory and reaction and emotion bit by bit. Every so often Galmar raises a point or a question, which you write down as well.

It's a scant report all told. Crucial, some of it—the map in particular, with its crooked lines and notes in the Dragonborn's surprisingly solid script—but so little.

It's not that you doubt whether it was right to seek information that could be so useful against the goldskins. You have too much conviction in your cause to question that. You do wonder, though, if getting this little sheaf of papers right _now_ was worth hurting the Dragonborn, possibly turning him away from you altogether.

Talos. The look on his face...

_Here, look, you could have this back. Clothes, food, wine! We could be nice, we could be kind!_

Does he think this way of your whole hospitality, now? Of the bed, the clothing, the food beyond this single disastrous meal? Mistrust like that could be impossible to repair.

You expected that the Dragonborn would be resistant to questioning. What you didn’t anticipate was that he would have been made to see even kindness and support as manipulation. How could you have? For you there was no talk of cooperation, no attempt to shape your future. They meant you to die in that dungeon.

“Ulfric.” Galmar's voice breaks you out of a reverie you hadn't noticed yourself falling into.

“Hm?”

“What do you make of all this, then?”

His gruff voice is too uncharacteristically gentle for the question to be only what it is on the surface. Besides which, you know this tactic of old: the benign prying, the questions aimed not _quite_ where they're meant to land, so that eventually a barrage of them will outline the shape of the matter neither you nor Galmar wants to touch directly. You level a wry, tired look at him.

“I'm fine,” you say. “I'm more concerned with our guest.”

“Somehow I expected that,” Galmar drawls.

“We need to be sure to keep a close watch on him. I don't want him slipping out of the Palace unnoticed.”

“Not in this state, no.”

“Not at all. He got out of the Thalmor Embassy and managed to crawl halfway across Skyrim. If he decides to leave Windhelm, we may never see him again.”

“Let him _go_ , then. If only all his kind would do that.”

“He's Dragonborn,” you say. To some, that might explain everything. You know—and you know Galmar suspects—that it doesn't.

*

By the sun, it's a few hours past noon when you finish up in the map room. It being Sundas, the Palace's doors are closed to visitors, so the entrance hall is empty as you and Galmar take the papers to the war room. Yrsarald is already there, poring over the big war chart.

“How did it go with Wuunferth?” you ask.

“Well enough,” he says, running a finger down the inscribed slope of Haafingar's mountains. He has a small red flag in his hand to mark the Embassy when he settles on a location. “The Dragonborn didn't say much.”

That give you pause. “You went after him?”

Yrsarald looks up. “Not as such. I found him in the hall and... asked him to come see Wuunferth with me. I thought the wizard might know something about healing for his arm.”

“And he just went with you.”

Yrsarald's expression turns faintly guarded. “He was upset,” he admits. “We spoke.”

“Where is he now?”

“The Grey Quarter,” says Yrsarald with a frown. “Wuunferth sent him off to look for a healer there.”

Behind you, Galmar gives a bark of laughter. “So much for keeping him under close watch, eh?”

“I sent a guard to follow him,” Yrsarald objects. “Without being seen, of course.”

“And how is the guard going to follow him without being noticed in the Grey Quarter?” you demand.

Yrsarald is very still for a moment before he closes his eyes and sighs in frustration at his own lapse in judgement. He’s the type to harangue himself far more aggressively than you ever would, so you leave it be. You yourself probably wouldn’t have thought about a guard losing the Dragonborn in the slum if that wasn’t exactly how you’d lost his trail last time he vanished from Windhelm.

“Have someone call Wuunferth down here, and send word for the men at the gates to keep an eye out for the elf,” you say to Galmar. “Tell them…” You consider for a moment, weighing carefully the balance between guarding a man and entrapping him—and how both of those options are perceived by someone who has been imprisoned for months. You might win back more trust by giving the Dragonborn leeway you’d rather not. “Tell them not to intervene if he tries to leave the city, but speak to him, and have someone follow if they must. And send word here immediately, of course.”

“Of course,” Galmar agrees, already striding off to leave you alone with Yrsarald, whose set jaw betrays his continuing distress.

“So Wuunferth couldn't do anything for the Dragonborn, then?” you ask.

Yrsarald rolls the Embassy flag between his fingers. He knows you are avoiding the real issue. “He barely took the time to look,” he grunts. “Said there were more capable healers in the Quarter. Or the apothecary might have something for it.”

“You're very concerned with his welfare,” you remark, easing into a thought you had earlier. “His arm, his gods...”

“Everyone should have their gods in a time of need,” says Yrsarald defensively.

After a moment, you agree slowly, “They should.” Yrsarald looks surprised, which doesn’t quite hurt, doesn’t quite shock, but it dissatisfies in some way. “Do you know anything about that saint of his?”

“Nothing but what he explained. I have enough difficulty with their version of Daedric lore.” He gives a dry laugh. “Ordinarily I’d write to the Bards College, but they might be less than pleased to get questions about comparative religion from me these days.”

The idea startles a grunt of laughter out of you, too. “I imagine so. We wouldn’t want to annoy them into rescinding your title.”

“There might be a few books on dark elves in the back of the library that haven’t been touched in a while. I can take a look if you want, but it would mean putting aside the law treatise I’ve been writing for Jarl Laila.”

“Keep your mind on the war,” you say, because word from Harrald is that Laila’s support is still tenuous. Though you doubt Imperial dogma will ever replace her Nordic principles, money troubles in the Rift may yet bend her to the call of the septim. If she would only put in enough effort to root out the last of the Thieves Guild and have done with it, as all the other Jarls have…

You frown. It takes effort to drag you own thoughts back to matters that aren’t war. This type of distraction, after all, is far from normal. But it’s a small thing you’re thinking of, and so necessary—even if he is an elf. Even if his gods are barbaric. “I’ll find time to look if I need to,” you finish. “But… ask around some evening. See if you can find one of those amulets he mentioned. There are enough greyskins in this city, surely one of them has what he’s missing.”

“You want one?” Yrsarald asks, baffled. He’s accustomed to you asking him to dig up books on foreign races; it’s another thing entirely to seek the furnishings of foreign worship.

“No. Give it to him.”

Now his expression turns truly guarded. It's not an expression you're accustomed to seeing from your men, let alone one of your commanders. “You want me to... what, exactly? Play at being his friend? Talk him over to the cause? Bribery won't get you real loyalty, Ulfric.”

“From what I've seen, I didn't think you were _playing_ at friendship,” you snap, nettled at the accusation. “You know I don't want any man or any _elf_ beneath my banner that could be bought.”

“And the amulet is what, then?”

If Galmar is the dissenting voice that says, _You must push harder_ , then Yrsarald is the voice that says, more rarely, _You go too far_. And he would be right this time: to court a damaged man’s loyalty by falsely playing on his faith and friendship would be unjust. Cruel.

That’s not what you’re doing. What you’re doing is—

(remembering the nervous drag of a grey hand across his breastbone, remembering the way you never needed to reach because you _always_ knew your chest was too light, remembering the way Galmar clutched your hand the instant he saw you emerge from the dark for the first time in seven years and you kept your fist clenched bloodlessly shut for the next six hours straight because he’d pressed a tiny silver axe directly into your palm and it had _burned_ )

“Everyone should have their gods in a time of need,” you say back to Yrsarald. “He doesn't trust me. He should have _someone_ who means him well.”

Right now it’s not about which gods, or whose friendship; it’s about stopping that anxious hand from telling the world _I am afraid, I am alone, I am bereft_.

Yrsarald doesn’t know this, but after a moment he takes your words as truth nonetheless. His face softens into thoughtfulness. “I’ll look. I have a few ideas where.”

A few moments later, Wuunferth arrives in what you already know is high dudgeon, his attempt at a menacing stride broken by the way stairs make him limp. Pain only makes his glower fiercer, though, at least to those unaccustomed to it—or to you, for whom he sketches manners.

“Oh, good, you're both already here,” Wuunferth announces as he stumps into the room. “So I'll only have to say this once.”

The sketch is sometimes rougher than other times.

Wuunferth points one gnarled finger at Yrsarald. Coming from him, this is much more of a threat than most people realize. “Don't you _ever_ bring that elf into my workshop again.”

“If it's healing he needs, take it as a request from me,” you interrupt.

“Oh, he needs healing, all right. But it won't be from me. No, not even if _you_ ask, Jarl Ulfric.”

“And why not?”

“Didn't you see those scars on the side of his face?” Wuunferth demands. “Lightning figures. From magic— a lot of it, to scar like that, but _carefully_ applied, not to have killed him. You know what that sort of magic smells like?”

He thrusts out an arm. Both you and Yrsarald flinch. But it's not the roil of violently white thread-lightning around his fist that brings back memories, it's the stench of burned air, of hot unnatural power. There is nothing else to compare it to; everything else is compared to this.

It's not quite the scent you knew best, but your mind fills in the blanks: a little more charcoal and hot bronze from the braziers, a little less of the burned-air, which the goldskins wore only like faint perfume. And the sweet reek of cooked flesh, of course. The salt-iron of blood between your back teeth so thick you could smell it as well as taste it.

“It smells like my workshop,” Wuunferth finishes. “And if it's all the same to you, I'd rather _not_ have to fight off a Dragonborn with Legionary’s disease who thinks I'm his torturer. Keep him _away_ from me.”

He spends a moment to take in your expression and Yrsarald's, then evidently judges you sufficiently impressed and sniffs. “Besides,” he adds, “like I said, I'm no Master of Restoration. There are better healers among his own people.”

“You do well enough for me,” you say, annoyed by the thought.

“Half the time I consult with Nurelion,” he says, dismissing the admission as only a man utterly and _irritatingly_ secure in his position can be. “And half of _those_ times, he tells me to ask the dark elves.”

You're not certain what burns more, the admission of your wizard's shortcomings or the fact that you didn't know about this years ago. The truth is, though, that Wuunferth is not like Galmar to you; he is an associate from the Great War, a tactical asset brought back from Cyrodiil. To him you are a jarl and a patron, sometimes a dinner companion. He does for you and you do not enquire how. Evidently you should have.

But it's too late, now; all you can do is observe caustically, “The court wizard of Eastmarch, consulting in a slum.”

“Yes, well,” Wuunferth drawls, “I can't help that that's where every mage with centuries of experience happens to live, can I?”

Into your sharp-taken breath, he inclines all the bow his spine can handle. “If you'll excuse me, Jarl Ulfric. I was in the middle of some rather pressing research.”

You glare until Wuunferth leaves. It's beneath your dignity to roar when any possible orders would be redundant, and ineffective besides. How can you tell him to get out when he's already leaving? Still, the frustration compounded in your throat is a near-tangible ache.

“Tell me about Haafingar,” you snap, rounding on Yrsarald. “What's the last word from Istar?”

The war. The troops. The Embassy. Drawing breath deeply, you focus on what is before you, not what has gone from the room. (The Palace, maybe the city... if he's fast. If he's frightened.) This day has gone horribly awry and you may have paid dearly for this little sheaf of papers from the Dragonborn: you had better make his information count.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (drops chapter... lies down... crawls away...)
> 
> Any constructive criticism/advice on anything in this chapter is welcome-- in any chapter, really, but especially this one. I've been staring at it for so long that it no longer makes any sense to me and I cannot stand to struggle with editing for one second longer. 2.5 months is a ridiculous length of time between updates. Apologies.
> 
> I'm also on tumblr as jottingprosaist, in case anybody is interested in getting weekly teasers and/or my howling frustrations about the writing process. Or just check my /tagged/Like-Lightning for the deets without the rest of the blog. :)


	7. Lleros (5)

Rage and terror carry you out of the Palace the way they always have: which is to say, blindly and without conscious thought, until you cannot put foot in front of foot one more time. It's mead-sickness rather than exhaustion that finally makes you crumple down on a set of stone steps somewhere in the Grey Quarter, but the effect is the same as if you'd crawled into another cave.

Your liquid-heavy stomach rolls and pressure threatens to burst at the back of your throat. Trying to settle it, you huddle over with your elbows on your knees, head hung, deep-drawing every breath.

_Don't break. Don't break. Don't break_.

And there are _people_ around you. The street you ended up on isn't exactly crowded—obviously residential rather than business—but it has its share of passers-by and inhabitants. While you have shadow here on the steps, the centre of the street is lit by a bright strip of what little sunlight reaches this far down between buildings cut four storeys deep into Windhelm's bedrock, and there people walk and cluster and smoke and, at the far crooking end of the street, hawk yarn and thread and fabric scraps from a cart. They're Dunmer all, straight-backed and grim, going about their business in odd quiet. The murmur of conversation that reaches you is a mixture of Trader's Tongue and Dunmeris, most of both languages incomprehensible through the ringing in your ears.

At least they don't look at you. It's the only thing that eases your crawling anxiety to manageable levels. You saw enough of the Quarter last time you were here to know that a stumbling drunk at noon is the least of the miseries for these people to glide their eyes over.

Eventually your nausea settles. Your heart slows; the fear-sweat cools beneath your clothes. While your ass has been numb on the icy stone almost since you sat down, now your feet are starting to get cold in their boots. Now all you have left is the _anger_.

_Go find a healer among your own people_ , Wuunferth said. Your own people? These people? Of _course_ that's what every human in Windhelm will think, never imagining that you, who grew up in the heart of the Reach and didn't meet your first Dunmer stranger until you were eighteen, could be as foreign to these people as any Nord.

Your people? You are _alone_ here. You have nobody.

And you have no money. Few weapons. So little of the gear you once travelled with. A damaged arm, a fragile heart, a mind that wakes you screaming in the night, a broken— _broken—_

This time you fold an arm over your face as you hang your head to your knees, jaw clenched to choke back upcoming sobs. Misery crushes in.

Azura, you _hate_ this. There was a time when you weren't all fucking _tears_! There was a time when you sought adventure, chased bounties, leapt into whatever new and strange trouble pulled your pity. You faced down more than one Daedric Prince without cringing like a dog. You fought _dragons_. And when Mirmulnir's soul punched a hole through your chest and your life? You climbed every last icy, treacherous one of the Seven Thousand blighted Steps and—and _faced up to it_.

_At least_ , you try to tell yourself, _this isn't the first time I've started over from nothing_.

Not true. After Helgen, you had Ralof. He stumbled through the ashes with you, cut your bonds, fought free at your elbow, got you shelter in Riverwood. More importantly, you had what Ralof had recovered from the prisoner wagon for you: _money_. That purse had contained a thousand septims of inheritance from your mother's great aunt, who had died in Cyrodiil. Attending her wake and will was the errand that had sent you across the border in the first place. If you hadn't had that money to buy decent armour and supplies in Whiterun, you would have been forced to slink back home rather than plunging headlong into the first dusty tomb a wizard asked you to pillage.

(Gods, what an adventure-sick fool you were. Did you have fun back then? Is it really possible that you were _thrilled_ by every fright and stumble and giddy hair-thin escape of doing battle alone for the first time ever? The memories feel foreign.)

Now, all the money you had then and all the money you'd made since is gone, either lining the Ambassador's pockets or in your pack with Delphine—or Delphine's corpse, if they've found her. If your betrayal led them to her. Which would put the coin back in the Ambassador's pockets, more likely than not.

Frustration makes you grind your teeth. So much money thrown away on inns and trinkets; so many trinkets bartered away for a tenth of their worth in ale and a fire-side bed; so many rewards _turned down_ out of graciousness, all because you were so _successful_ and thought you'd always be so.

( _rewards turned down..._ )

A sudden thought makes you sit bolt upright.

You are _not_ alone here, among the people not-quite-yours. And, if any god has mercy left, you may have gold. All you need to do is find Revyn Sadri.

“Are you all right, sera?”

You look up sharply. A tall woman in peaked grey robes is peering out the door at you. She's severe-faced in the way that old mer are, so you can't tell if she's angry or not, but you're still embarrassed to be found loitering drunkenly on the steps of her home.

“I think so,” you say. “I'm sorry, I'll leave.” Then the hasty rise to your feet catches up in a rush of blood. Your stomach and head lurch in opposite directions, forcing you to sit back down hard or else vomit.

“I didn't ask you to leave,” the woman says, stepping out onto the stairs despite the chilly air. “Do you need direction?”

You swallow hard against the nausea and croak, “Yes, actually.” Gratitude and relief are equally warm.

She nods gravely, as if she'd expected this answer all along, and sweeps the door of her house open. Sunset-striped hangings on the walls ripple in the draft of cold air; the smell of tarry incense rises out. “Come in, then.”

You blink, taken aback. “I... beg your pardon?”

“Well, I hardly want to converse out in the cold,” she says, a touch sharply. “Come _in_.”

“No, no, I—I just need to know how to get to Sadri's Used Wares.” But as you speak, your eyes slide past her shoulder and into her house, drawn by the bright flare of candlelight at the end of the hall. Your mouth drops a little.

Illuminated from the feet up by a panoply of candles is a woman halfway nude, both arms upraised to bear a sickled moon and writhing star into the shadows around her head. Even on the tapestry, faded with age and partially eaten by a black-edged burn, her figure radiates out of the gloom.

“Is this a temple?” you ask faintly, though you already know. Of course: the great statue to Azura in Winterhold has been all but abandoned for years. It's truly abandoned now that Aranea has been released from her vows. No openly Daedric temple would be permitted in Windhelm. What else can the Dunmer here do but turn their homes into shrines?

The woman—the priestess— frowns. “Indeed. I assumed that was why you were sitting here.”

Shaken, you rise to your feet slowly enough to keep your head. You cannot sprawl about in front of this place. “I didn't know. I'm... new to Windhelm.”

“My deepest apologies, sera,” she says dryly. “Sadri's Used Wares, then. Follow this street east to Dyer's Way, go downhill until you hit the Gutter, then walk uphill south until you see it.” The priestess cocks her head at you. “Are you certain you don't want to come in?”

“I think I've had my questions answered,” you say, eyes fixed on Azura's rose-crowned figure. “Thank you, ma'am.”

She pierces you with a look that makes you wonder, suddenly, how much she knows, this priestess of half-light and prophetic insight. Can she see championship on your soul like an aura, or intuit some inkling of your service to Azura? Or are you simply another stranger? “Return any time, sera. Azura's wisdom guide you.”

“So it does,” you agree, and head towards Dyer's Way with your heart pounding.

You may never have been the most devoted of followers, and it may have been months since you locked Azura's Star in a trunk at the College for safekeeping, but you know better than to overlook even the smallest benign nudge. If this is all the answer you get for your praying, you will take it and be  _thankful_.

 

* * *

 

 

Wind blusters down the canyoned street in driven gales, whistling over every recess in the stonework. Even the uphill walk isn't enough to warm your blood. You had the presence of mind to return to your room for your robes before dashing out of the Palace, but they're torn and underneath them you're not properly dressed for the weather. Your teeth are chattering by the time you finally see the pawn shop's sign swinging in the draft.

“Welcome to Sadri's Used Wares! Have a look around and let me know if anything catches your interest.”

For all its warmth, the greeting is impersonal. You falter and stand shivering by the door, nonplussed. “Revyn?”

His smile slips slightly. “That's me. Can I help you?”

A choked laugh bubbles up faster than you can stop it. Oh, this is _excellent_. You decide to pin your hopes on him and he doesn't even remember you. “I had thought so, yes,” you say. “Revyn, it's me. Lleros.” His brows knit. “Forgive me, I thought you would...”

Then he utters, “ _Lleros_ ,” visibly jolting with recollection and recognition. Thank Azura yet again. “You look _wretched_.”

Self-consciously, your hand rises to the scars at the corner of your mouth, waxy-hard. He did have reason not to recognize you. Sometimes you manage to forget for a while. “Thank you ever so much. I've missed you too.”

You didn't—you've hardly had time in the last half year to breathe, let alone reminisce _—_ but does he know that? And now that you see Revyn again, suddenly you _do_ feel a hard rush of longing, a swell of desire not so much for him but for his bed and his arms and the simpler time they represent. Back when crawling into bed with a near stranger was a simple fix for your stress.

Revyn hurries around the counter, reaching out, but wavers before he actually catches your arm. “By the Ancestors, you're _alive_. You look—I'd thought—well, we _all_ thought you were dead. Not that anyone else around here really knows you, but Ambarys smuggled some of the wanted posters in and it was all anybody could talk about.”

A cabinet rattles against your back before you realize you've backed sharply away. “What?”

Biting his lip, Revyn reaches past you to lock the shop door. “Did anybody see you come in here?”

“I—I just walked here, I didn't—” Didn't cover your face, didn't even put your hood back up when the wind tore it off. Oh no.

Revyn rakes both hands through his wiry hair, standing it up even taller. He turns and paces fretfully away. “How long have you been in the city?” he asks. “Nobody really knows you here except me, but... I mean, they don't, do they? You—oh. Oh no, no. I didn't mean that, it's probably fine! Ah— _breathe_ , just breathe. It's all right, calm down, just...”

Shaking, you slide down the wall to huddle on the floor and wheeze while Revyn pats your arm gingerly.

“Ulfric doesn't allow Imperial wanted posters in the city, so there were never that many of them,” Revyn prattles on, attempting to soothe. “And you know, the Nords couldn't tell me apart from Indoril Nerevar himself if their lives depended on it. I'm sure nobody recognized you. Just calm down and _breathe_ , Lleros!”

“I'm trying!” you snap. “Sorry. I'm—sorry.”

“Yes, well... yes. There you go. Here, let's... ah, I'll make tea.”

In Revyn's bedroom, you huddle in the single chair at his table while he hangs a kettle and pokes at the fire, muttering under his breath all the while. The room is as painfully spare as it was half a year ago, yet also as cramped. The entire life of one person should not be crammed in a single room. But here it is: a bed for one, a table for one, a small wardrobe and a smaller hearth.

“Don't get used to this,” Revyn warns as he hands you a cup of tea. “Guest or not, I don't serve people.”

“I'm flattered,” you murmur. “Thank you.” His prickliness is a defense mechanism against the awkwardness and genuine fear you've brought into his life. You can hardly fault him for it.

Revyn fetches a spare chair from his back room and returns. Once he's settled, though, you two can only stare at each other across the table. The distance between you is half a year wide. You're too familiar to be strangers and too long parted to be bedfellows.

“So... back in Windhelm again,” he tries. “I thought you were never coming back.”

“Yes. I’ve come to do something horribly rude,” you say with a thin and humourless smile, all teeth in too many ways. You want it to be warmer for him, but you don’t have it in you. “I need to ask you for the money you offered me back then.”

“You're joking.”

“I'm not.” You lift an arm to display the ragged cuff of your robes, still forcing a smile. “I'm not as well off as I used to be.”

“I can see that.” Revyn takes a halting sip of his tea, lowers it—lifts it, puts it down, and runs his hands through his hair. “Well, that's very... I know I promised you the money, but after all this time...”

You wince. “I know.”

“You said you didn't want it.”

Yes, and that you'd rather have a warm bed instead. An _empty_ bed—you had stressed that fact—just somewhere cheaper and more welcoming than Candlehearth Hall. You hadn't wanted to take all the poor man's money, but hadn't wanted to offend his pride either. That he'd ended up sharing the bed with you a few days later had been a genuine, if welcome, surprise.

“I know. Things are different.”

“So I see.” Revyn finally meets your eyes again. “I can't.”

It takes a few moments for you to be able to speak. “All right,” you croak, trying to control yourself.

“Oh, don't look like that,” Revyn protests, sounding wretched. “Lleros. I would give it to you if I could, believe me. I'm a mer of my word. But things are different here, too. I haven't _got_ that kind of money to spare any more.”

“I didn't think you really had it back then, either.”

“Probably not,” he admits. “But taxes are due soon. And with the war, Ulfric's raised them on everybody again, and I haven't had as much business, and...”

“I understand.” Serve you right for hoping, doesn't it. Stupid, thinking you could—

“But come on,” Revyn says, standing abruptly. “I won't have you walk away like this. I owe you.”

Startled, you let him lead you back into the shop. Revyn starts throwing open trunks and cupboards, revealing heaps of of folded clothing, shoes, blankets, dishes, travelling gear, armour, weapons, books: the battered and mended miscellany of a thousand lives.

“I said five hundred septims, didn't I? Go on. I may not have the coin to spare but these goods aren't exactly walking out the door on their own. Azura knows, you look like you need it more than me.”

You stand there, rooted to the floor and ears ringing, until Revyn hesitantly pats your shoulder again.

“No, no, don't thank me,” he says. “Please. Don't. Go on.”

So you shuffle about in a wardrobe full of shirts until your eyes have stopped watering, and Revyn putters behind the counter for a while before settling down with his tea.

When you present him with two shirts and a pair of wool trousers long enough that you can cut the ragged hems off, he curls his lip. “Thirty septims. Go try again. Find some robes, why don't you.”

It's a sharp reminder that yours are tattered thanks to the briars of the Haafingar Mountains, the weeks you spent living in a cave—gods, and Stormcloak _saw_ you like this. “Here,” you utter, all but yanking your robes open and off your shoulders. “You can probably sell them for rags.”

Startled, Revyn fingers the material. “What is this, Druadach wool? You won't find anything near this quality in here,” he warns. “I've been picked clean of winter clothes since Hearthfire. If you got them fixed...”

“No. I don't want them.”

He throws you a pensive glance but gathers the robes up anyway. “Add another twenty septims to what I owe you, then. Even though I'll have to have them tailored back together before I can even _think_ about selling them... Are you still standing there? Go _on_.”

The look you give him is doe-eyed enough to make Revyn roll his eyes, but you still see the smile tucked in the corner of his mouth as you go back to hunting through his goods with increasing eagerness. You can hardly believe that yes, _yes_ , Revyn really is giving you permission to take what you need. _Zenithar_ , you pray, _bless him with bounty. Azura, guide him_.

“So how long have you been back in this pit of a city?” Revyn asks, as you try on leather mitts, searching for a pair that can fit your gloves beneath them. Gloves are necessary for archery, but not warm enough for travel.

“About a week. Revyn, you'll never believe. I'm staying at the Palace.”

He chokes on his tea. “At the—Ancestors have mercy, you idiot, why didn't you come here _before_ you ended up working a bed?”

Unable to believe your ears, you gape at him. “I'm _not_ ,” is all you can manage. Does he really think that anyone at the Palace would buy you as a bed worker? Or that you'd _let_ yourself be hired there to warm someone's mattress?

“Surely Samarys isn't letting you stay for free!”

Something has gone wrong in the conversation; you're both talking past each other. “I don't know what you're talking about,” you say slowly. “Revyn, I'm staying at the Palace of the Kings. By invitation. Yes, for free.”

His lip trembles for a moment before he bursts out laughing. “Oh, very good! I thought you meant the Red Palace, but this is better!”

Nonplussed, you throw a worn-seamed pair of horker-hide mitts at him and go to pick through a tray of jewelry that caught your eye. At your silence, Revyn haltingly stops laughing.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Are you serious?”

“I hardly believe it either. I still don't know why Stormcloak wants me there. Aside from the obvious, that is,” you add, as your stomach twists at the memory of the earlier afternoon. No, don't think about that.

“Well, yes. Dragonborn,” Revyn says, mulling over the idea. “I... suppose. How is life in there, then?”

“Cold,” you say. “The bed is nice, though. Good food.”

“And you just...” He waves a hand no more articulate than his words. “Stay there?”

The frustrating thing is that you know what sort of detailed answer he's seeking; you just don't have one yourself. Stay there... and what else?

_If you so desire, you are welcome to take up residence in the Palace of Kings for as long as is necessary or preferred_ , Ulfric wrote. Now you know that he wanted to interrogate you as well. What else is yet to come?

The sourness of mead rising to the back of your throat forces you to swallow and change subjects. Your fingers stir aimlessly through the mess of chains and charms in the tray: cheap pieces all, nothing enchanted or valuable enough to keep behind the counter. “Yes, well. You of all people know I'm not one to turn down a free bed.”

From the mess of broken chains and worn wooden pendants, you lift out an amulet of Kynareth: a sleek teardrop of tarnished pewter missing its drop of turquoise, strung on a worn leather thong. You shouldn't be surprised that a Dunmer shopkeep would put this among the baubles. It's holy to humans, not dark elves. For you... as a student of the School of Restoration, you'd been given an amulet and sworn the healer's oath to Kyne at the end of your first apprenticeship. You had never quite worshipped, but you served, much to your parents' dismay. You believed the Greybeards when they said that your Voice had come from Kyne.

“Revyn,” you said, turning to him abruptly. “Where do I find a healer?”

 

* * *

 

It turns out to be easier than you'd thought. Revyn Sadri is what passes for wealthy in the Grey Quarter, and he's in the habit of sharing what he has. You're not the first unfortunate he's traded favours for goods with, he tells you: in fact, it's a currency he's known for. If Revyn wants something done, he has but to ask; there are few people who would turn down the chance to accrue credit for the next time they can't afford new shoes or need a loan before their pay is due.

“Shouldn't be much longer now,” he says, blowing the ink dry on the notes he penned carefully.

Sure enough, a gangly Dunmer girl with a shaved head and wrap-shod feet slinks into the store while you're trying on robes. You turn away to hide your face and try to make yourself unobtrusive.

Unlike a customer, she hangs by the door. “You got cleaning for me?” she asks hopefully.

“Gilyn, good,” Revyn says, beckoning her over. “I need you to do something else first. Go and get your sisters.”

“Might be busy.”

“Go and tell your sisters that if they want to make a few septims, they can pry themselves away from that little den of theirs and do some running about for me.”

“Do I get a septim?” Gilyn demands.

“A half-septim. I'm already paying you for cleaning!” he insists, forestalling the protest. “Shoo.”

Forewarned, you abandon the robes and slip into Revyn's bedroom. A few minutes later, Gilyn returns panting with several raucous-voiced girls who sound several years her senior. Revyn deals out coin and notes, along with a mixture of gratitude and snappish warning against foolery.

“I've got some new pieces of armour here,” you hear him tell Gilyn once her sisters have trotted out. A table scrapes across the floor in his cluttered back room. “Ah, here. Dug up out of some mouldering crypt, no doubt. Covered in rust.”

Gilyn groans.

“And if you don't mind, you can stay in there and keep quiet,” Revyn says. “I've got company over right now.”

“With _me_ here?” Gilyn gasps, mockingly scandalized.

“We are having _tea_ , you little wretch,” Revyn snaps. “Hush or go.”

“I want tea too.”

“ _Hush_.”

You take a hasty gulp of your cold tea to hide a smile as Revyn comes back into the bedroom.

“Wait a moment, I'll have to get her some tea or she'll never leave us alone,” he grumbles, re-filling the pot with steaming water. “Children these days. Don't tell me you're done looking already.”

“I didn't think I should be seen.”

“She'll be busy at that all day, go on.”

He chivvies you like a mother hen back out into the shop. _Children_ , he'd muttered as he spooned expensive honey into Gilyn's cup, actions contradicting his words. Unlike Asda and Stormcloak and even Yrsarald, Revyn hasn't given you any reason to doubt his kindness is anything but genuine. It doesn't make you craven or weak to comply with his care, it _doesn't_. He's not buying your cooperation.

Words from earlier return like a wasp. _You said you were already cooperating. What did they have to tempt you for?_

Stupid. _Stupid_ fool, confessing to your weakness like that, outright telling Stormcloak that you had given in to the Thalmor... Of all your shames, you'd thought you could keep that one private, but then you got yourself drunk and just let it _slip out_.

Biting your lip painfully, you thump a cabinet open harder than you'd meant to and bury yourself in unearthing its contents.

Gilyn's sisters dart in and out again several times over the next few hours, bearing new notes for Revyn. Each time the door squeaks, you jump and duck back into the bedroom. The strain in Revyn's face doesn't lend much credence to his whispered reassurances about not being recognized. Finally, you toss the new gear that you've collected so far into a gathersack and give up looking, secluding yourself in the bedroom.

Revyn seems glad to join you. Over a new pot of tea, you make small talk that starts off stilted and gets easier, even with Revyn ducking out every once in a while to answer the next round of notes in this game of message tag. The last three months in your lift are a black pit that you don't want to think about, let alone discuss, but with Revyn's cautious prodding, you eventually find you can still dig up stories about your travels before then.

It's surprisingly heartening to lose yourself in the memories. The warm glow of Revyn's interest and astonishment throws into perspective how much you've done in the scant year since you left home and crashed into a legend come to life. Gesticulating and with increasing enthusiasm, you talk about climbing the Seven Thousand Steps, about killing dragons, about a fake haunting in a barrow, about breaking up a skooma-dealing operation, about witnessing sunset glisten off the marsh-writhing Hjaal River from the Skyborn Altar—

Then your hand spasms and loses grip on your cup, spilling tea all over the table. Your good mood vanishes like a quenched candle.

“And now I can't even hold a damn cup,” you snarl, mopping recklessly at the spill with a rag while Revyn tries to help.

“It's just a bit of tea!” he protests. He hands flutter over yours. “I can—will you just—”

He looks nearly frightened by your sudden flare of temper. Flashing cold as suddenly as you went hot, you sit down heavily. You're sick with the urge to apologize, but words seem so inadequate and your throat sticks.

_I am ruined_ , you want to tell Revyn, but you already know he wouldn't understand.

Revyn finishes cleaning the table and wrings the cloth out. In pinch-lipped silence, he pours another round of tea, palest orange, from leaves three times steeped. Unable to look at him, you hold your cup but don't dare pick it up. All you can hear is the grunt and hiss-creak of Gilyn scouring rusty armour in a barrel of sand.

Unable to toy with his cup any longer, Revyn finally asks, “How are you parents?”

It wasn't what you were expecting.

“Surely you've heard from them recently,” he continues, frowning. “I mean, the couriers are still neutral. They ought to have at least tried to send you a letter as soon as the bounty notices were posted.”

“I don't think they know,” you say, only just coming to that realization yourself. “It's such a small village, and that far out in the Reach...”

Gods. It's one thing to think of your parents in the abstract, the past, to talk about how you grew up; it's another to remember that home— _home_ —is really still out there.

Life in the Reach feels an entire world away. You'd left for education, of course, in Markarth and then Winterhold, and to hunt with your mother, but it was always with family obligation wrapped around your wrist like a leash. After Helgen, with a thousand septims in your purse and the sudden revelation of your Voice, you got the bit between your teeth for the first time in your life and _ran_. It was wild and foolish, the act of a child with no real conception of the responsibility you'd been given, and yet even in the worst times... you didn't think of going home. In the beginning you wrote letters, certainly, and received them in return. Guilt squirms in your chest as you realize just how long the time between your letters had been starting to get when the Thalmor captured you.

When your slack-jawed silence stretches too long, Revyn demands, “Haven't you written to them?”

You can only shake your head.

“ _Children_.” Scowling, Revyn jumps up and sweeps across the bedroom to his dresser. He thumps a roll of rag paper and a bottle of ink imperiously onto the table in front of you. “They must be out of their _minds_ worrying.”

So you could tell them what has happened... and bring them into this _nightmare_? It takes a single heartbeat to dismiss that idea.

You cannot involve your parents. Beneath the Ambassador's stare, you betrayed Delphine and Jarl Elisif and every other person that you could think of whose secrets you thought you could trade for a single night's reprieve from the table and the chains and the lightning that kept you from Shouting while you were ungagged to talk. But your parents—not them. There was not a single word of them spoken in the dungeon, and you will die to keep it that way.

“No.”

“Lleros—”

“I can't involve them in this!” you shout. “If the Thalmor—” Remembering Gilyn in the other room, you cut yourself off. The sudden terror breaking out in cold sweat across your palms is too horrible to put into words, anyway. “I _can't_.”

“And let them think you're dead? Lleros, I know how you love these Nords, but you are Dunmer and they are your _family_. After everything they've been through—”

“You don't know my parents!”

“I know enough! I know they survived the Red Year and your closest living relatives are in Cyrodiil and you're their only son. Ancestors help you, Lleros, don't do this to them.”

“I can't. I can't.”

“You have to!” Revyn throws his hands in the air, turning sharply on his heel to pace. “You're their son. I don't understand how you can _not_ want to hear from them. Is this something Nords do: run off from their families and go gallivanting around doing whatever they please without so much as a word? Is that what you want to do?”

“I...”

Then, painfully tentative, Revyn is touching your cheek. You are shaking. When did he kneel in front of you?

“Stop. By Azura, Lleros, stop, please stop. It's all right. Come on.”

“I will,” you croak. “I'll. I'll do it. I'll write.”

He dabs at your cheek a bit more, uncertain with such direct tenderness. Ah. Independently of your will, your eyes have started running again, long slow tears dripping down your face.

Stiffening, you lean backward and say, “I'm fine.”

“All right then,” Revyn mutters. “I'll... I have to adjust my accounts for the things you're buying.”

As far as escapes go, his is a graceless one, but its haste is a kindness. You are, however, now responsible for driving a man out of his own bedroom.

You wipe your face and take a shuddering breath.

It takes two hours to pen three lines. It's scarcely a note, let alone a letter, but you think, after so long spent wrestling with the difficulty of putting ordeal into words and the question of whether your parents actually need to _know_ about that ordeal, that three lines suffice.

  
  


_Duyana and Nilos Ulawayn,_

_I am deeply sorry for how long it has been since my last letter of Rain's Hand. You may have heard from others of my recent troubles; regardless, all is well now. Circumstances still prevent me from writing much or often, but know that I am safe and in good health, and I think of you._

—

  
  


You sign it not with your name but with a sketch of Saint Effra's outstretched palm in a circle. ( _Don't worry: I am guided_. Your father will know.) If the letter should fall into the wrong hands—if the Thalmor should break Imperial ban and begin seizing couriers—there is nothing in these vague formalities to identify you or incriminate your parents.

In all that time, Gilyn's sisters have come and gone a few more times. Gilyn has finished scouring the armour; now the store smells like oil and polish. Revyn is surely done settling his accounts, but he hasn't returned, so you don't impose yourself. Instead, you sit quietly over the folded letter and drift.

Revyn's footsteps wake you from half-sleep. He lingers in the doorway, as if this is not his home, brows lowered and arms folded edgily. “It's almost seven bells,” he tells you. “I arranged for everyone to meet up on the hour. Given that we're the ones they're all coming for, we shouldn't be late.”

All this for a near-stranger who showed up on his doorstep half a year after a tumble between the sheets, ragged and half mad and begging for gold. This nervous shopkeeper is a _wonder_.

“Revyn, I can't thank you enough,” you say, with such embarrassing rawness that he sniffs and says, “No, you can't.”

In the shop, you pull on the winter robes that Revyn left draped over your gathersack of new belongings. The blue quilted wool is faded and patched, but they'll do. Better these than your rags and shame.

Revyn gives you one last anxious look as you pull your hair out from under the collar. “I don't think you'll need to cover your face with a scarf,” he says, in a tone that actually suggests he'd feel better if you did. “You're nice enough, but not terribly unique.”

Except that one glance at the numerous mirrors hanging displayed on the near wall proves that lie. How memorable is a Dunmer with raw red scars framing his mouth? Worse, how do you cover them without drawing more attention? The colour alone is...

Abruptly, you turn and stride across the cluttered store. Somewhere amidst the pottery, in the shelves of chipped cups and pots and urns, there is... Yes, here. Four squat palm-sized jars sealed with cork or wire hasps. The first contains something like slick grey clay, too sallow to match your skin. The second is halfway full of what you want: glossy, violently red paint.

A dab on the tip of your tongue is enough to confirm that the pigment wasn't mixed into troll fat, an effective but toxic base used by unscrupulous apothecaries. Then you scoop two fingers into the paint and strike it across your face in thick, harsh streaks: eyelid to temple on each side, then down the tearline by the side of your nose to your jaw. This is the design called Nose-of-Fox. It's battle paint, a face of the Reach, worn by Vrage boat-thane of Ysgramor and sons of the mountain ever since and so on until the Turning of the Wheel, _et cetera_ for thirty-three stanzas and thirty-two more Old Aspects. It also happens to cover the corners of your mouth.

Paint caught in your lashes and the creases of your eyelids makes you blink. Even before you catch sight of yourself in the mirrors, you know from Revyn's expression that the lurid design works. Your reflection in a silver frame is only confirmation.

You are bloody-faced and fierce, teeth glinting white in an open wound, eyes reduced to a crimson gleam one shade brighter than the paint. The spectacle of paint breaks the cognizable shape of your face and draws the eye harder than any ripple of scar tissue concealed beneath. There is no recognizing this macabre elf. Divines, even _you_ think you're somebody else—somebody, perhaps, who you can learn to be in truth.

“Better?” you prompt, so that Revyn will nod jerkily and agree, “Better. Now let's go see your healers.”

 


	8. Lleros (8)

The way to the healer’s house is long, crooked, and mostly downhill, which is not at all reassuring. Earlier today you walked through the Gutter to reach Sadri's Used Wares, and it reminded you of something you were told by a guard the first time you visited Windhelm, before you knew better than to ask a bored, irate Nord for help in this city: “The Grey Quarter? Whip yourself out, take a piss, and follow it downhill, elf. You'll find the Grey Quarter.” Windhelm gets worse the farther downhill it goes, and the Gutter is where the piss stops running.

The yarn-tangling oxbow of lanes where Revyn leads you isn't quite to the Gutter, but the streets are still narrow and irregular, unlike the broader, straighter avenues of high ground. The houses are built up two floors high of stone quarried from the rock of Windhelm itself, their Nordic excess of solidity a hallmark of times when this Quarter was known for its snow, deep-drifted to lower ground. But these days the houses of centuries past are not enough; they've been built another level higher in timber washed silver by rain and snow, the construction style now spare to stretch every scrap of wood. In some places the houses are a level  _lower_ , too, where the streets were cut deeper and new rooms were hacked out below the old foundations.

With sundown darkening the icy streets, most people have moved inside; those who remain are cloak-wrapped and quiet, lurking in alcoves and alleys. Their shades lurking at the corners of your vision make your spine crawl in a way that has nothing to do with the cold. It’s all you can do to tell yourself that they’re just seeking shelter from the wind, as you would if you had no place else to go.

“Here,” says Revyn, leading you up a splintery wooden staircase to a row of third-level doors. “This is Edris’s house. We’d have all met at my shop if it weren’t for the fact that he’s too old to even leave home these days.”

Revyn knocks. You stand behind him with your hands shoved beneath your armpits to keep them from shaking. The new robes are thinner than you’d expected.

Revyn exchanges a few words of greeting in Dunmeris with the man who answers the door. You feel rude for having to nod silent acknowledgment to your own welcome, but you speak little Dunmeris despite your parents’ best efforts: in childhood it was more important and more interesting to learn the Old Speech that some of the grandmothers gossiped darkly in while carving ale horns and milking goats. For the first time in your life, this lack is a weakness.

Inside, you’re ushered up a staircase. Here again Revyn does all the talking, exchanging professionally cheerful words with the grim—or merely taciturn?—people gathered. It’s still all in Dunmeris, which leaves you lingering awkwardly in the doorway.

But why should they speak the language of Skyrim? All the healers here are _old_ , even for elves: they have silvered, lost hair and grown magnificent beards; their faces are craggy in the way that only comes from centuries of slow bone ridge growth and thinning skin. Two of them are smoking pipes that leak sweetish fumes; another has elaborate purple tattoos all over her face and throat. The stooped man with impressively upswept eyebrows and bird-boned hands, you think, must be Edris.

As one, they turn their eyes on you. You stiffen defensively. Beneath the elbow clamped tightly to your side, your right hand is trying to twitch.

“Well, let’s get this over with,” one man grunts.

“ _Stop it_ ,” snaps another woman in Dunmeris. These words, at least, you know well. You eye her warily as she approaches, but she keeps her hands folded together in front of her. “My name is Tethyls Malonyn, former Head Chirurgeon to House Hlaalu.” She curls her lip on 'former.' You surmise from her title and centuries-long bitterness that her fall from grace was farther than that of most of Morrowind's refugees. “You’re our patient, are you?”

You and Revyn discussed this on the way over and decided it was wisest not to give your real name—the one on the Thalmor wanted posters. Disgusted at your unfamiliarity with Dunmer names, Revyn had given you the name of his cousin (who was long dead in Vivec, he assured you, so there was no risk of you being suspected of impersonation).

“Drals,” you say, inclining your head. “Vedran.”

Hard as you try, you can’t help wrinkling your nose at the powerful stench that floated over with Tethyls.

“It’s urine,” she says flatly, and you flush hot with mortification. “I work in the tannery. I haven’t had time to eat yet, let alone bathe.” Before you can stammer an apology, she gestures you brusquely into the room. “Well, come over here and let’s see you."

Still you hesitate. “Do you need to—see?”

“Not everything,” the tattooed woman says, revealing tobacco stained teeth. “Depends what you’ve got. Sadri didn’t say. Internal damage I can mend blind, of course.”

“Muthsera Edris Fevur specializes in skin damage and scar tissue,” Tethyls says, indicating the man with the eyebrows, “though of course his talents are considerable in other areas as well. Orvros Adren is best with badly set bones, and Ano Virith is a Master Healer of the former Mournhold Seminary.”

“Easiest if you just tell us what you’ve got, and we’ll decide who you need,” says Ano around his pipe. It’s difficult to tell if he’s hostile or if your fear is tainting your perception.

Though it’s the last think you want to say, you turn to Revyn and ask, “Could you leave?”

“I… well.” In the corner of your eye, you see Tethyls gesture. “Yes, all right. I’ll be just downstairs. If you need me.”

You take a seat on a creaking bench not too close to the healers' clustered chairs, and the youngest woman there—not one of the healers, she tells you, but Edris’ daughter, Lleddon—pours you a cup of something powerfully alcoholic. Most of the healers have some as well. It burns worse than any mead or ale.

You can't look anyone in the face as you name your pains one after the other, a recounting of Oblivion, for the unassailable fear that you'll see contempt in their eyes. Instead, you speak to a knothole in the wall across the room. From your time at the Temple of Kynareth, you know what a healer wants and needs from a patient describing their ailment, but still your words come out faltering and vague.

 _Everything hurts. When I wake up, mostly, but sometimes—it just hurts, I don’t know why. My skin, it’s too tight. I have… scars. My hand shakes. I can’t control it. My arm—my back—my ankle_ —

Orvros asks permission to take your hand, and manipulates your fingers and wrist and elbow experimentally. Your hand spasms once while she’s holding it.

“Did you ever dislocate your wrist or shoulder?”

“I... yes.”

_Articulated gauntlets biting into your wrists—several endless days spent on your knees bent over with your arms twisted behind your back, wrenched to various blinding degrees—and then one day the soldier gave a calculated twist that you couldn’t believe was physically possible and your shoulder was wedged all the way out of its socket. Pain made your vision white out just before you vomited. But it was the sound, the horrifying crunch of bone and cartilage, that made you beg the interrogator not to do it again._

“How many times?”

“ _Progress,” he commented to the guard as they left at the end of the day_.

“I don’t know,” you croak too quietly. The old healers frown and lean in and you have to repeat, “I don’t _know_. I can’t remember.”

“Did you ever cut any of the tendons in your hand or wrist?”

You stare at your wrist as if it will give you answers. It’s covered by a thick band of scar tissue. “I don’t know.”

The healers seem to think that because you will not look at any of them, you cannot _see_ them. You do. You are intensely aware of _everything_ in the room, in the rooms below and above, in the street outside. You see the silent exchange of glances that travels around the room.

When the tattooed woman asks if she can cast Seeing to examine your insides, it takes a massive force of will to consent. Seeing is an utterly harmless spell, one that affects only the caster; you know it well yourself, given that mastery of it was mandatory in order to pass the Restoration exams from novice to apprentice. It is a healer's best tool for finding injury in an unhelpful or unconscious patient. Gods, you remember how Master Colette could rant for hours about how Seeing became such a devalued spell when the Imperial Synod re-categorized Mysticism spells under the other Schools— “as if they had somehow changed the nature of the magic, rather than the way we write it down on paper!”

Burying yourself in these memories, you close your eyes because you don't want to discover if the aura of magic around the healer's purple-inked hands will suddenly turn blue-white, if you'll smell ozone and burning flesh that isn't real, if you'll scream at nothing in front of all these elders.

The healer casts. Then, after a long moment, she asks Orvros and Tethyls to cast Seeing as well.

“These scars,” Edris says later. “Do they go much farther down your arm?”

He is deliberately ignoring the heavy manacle scar, impossible to misinterpret, and speaking of the tracery of lightning figures that trail up your forearm.

“They’re—I have a lot.”

“Where?”

Your teeth are clenching hard enough to send shooting pain through your skull. Vaguely, you gesture at your jaw, where white tendrils crawl up from your collar, then down at the rest of your body.

Edris’ wiry eyebrows draw together.

“Everywhere,” you grind out.

“Is the muscle pain worse when you wake?”

“What spell was this that burned you?”

“How many times did that happen, do you know?”

The situation is painfully reminiscent of Stormcloak's interrogation over lunch, scarcely hours past, right down to the burn of alcohol in your throat. You sit on the edge of the bench in more ways than one, trembling-tense and clinging harder than ever to self-control. You cannot slip in front of these healers.

Eventually, they stop asking you questions and instead confer amongst themselves. They use Trader’s Tongue although it’s obviously foreign in their mouths, and although one silver-haired woman whom Tethyls didn't introduce merely sits with her pipe clenched between her teeth because she doesn’t seem to speak Trader at all. Given your memories of Altmer conferring in honeyed syllables above your head so that you could never understand what was coming next, you appreciate the effort these healers are making to soothe your paranoia by speaking a language you understand. Even if it means you have to listen to them talking about scar contracture and muscle spasms and re-aggravated hairline fractures.

(Though surely they can’t _know_ what you’re remembering. It's not that obvious what's been done to you, is it?)

“My talents are not needed here,” Ano announces at last, and wraps his scarf to leave without any further delay. Two others rise as well, Orvros the bone-setter and the organ-mender. “Imagine calling me here over _this_. I will be having words with Revyn.”

“Azura guide you,” murmurs Orvros as she passes, which takes some of the sting out of Ano's words, but only some. You bite down on your incredulous rage with teeth that would rather have something else between them. What does _he_ know about how desperate your need is? He never even examined you himself.

This leaves three: Tethyls, Edris, and the old woman still sucking silently on her pipe.

It's the old healer who speaks first: just a few words, firm, with a tip of her chin that seems meant for emphasis. But you can't parse any of it.

“Muthsera Hlanule and I will be glad to help remove your scars,” Edris translates.

He.

Did he...

You draw breath to cry _gratitude_ , but all that happens is that your lip trembles. Your chest is still too locked with shock for your voice to work.

This whole time, Edris has been inscrutably grim, still-faced in the way that so many old Dunmer seem to be. Even so, now you see his eyes squint with unmistakable pleasure. “You never wondered how we’ve got a city full of survivors from the Red Year, but barely any scarred by ash and gas?” he says, leaning in as if to share a delicious secret. “It took us a century or two, but we’ve figured out how to remove scars. Seemed like the thing most people needed.”

It’s certainly what you need, if you’re ever to draw your war bow to its fullest extent again. Right now, the skin around your armpit is too pinched to stretch.

“Thank you,” you finally gasp. “Thank you. I can—thank you.”

“And I’m fairly certain I can mend your hand,” Tethyls says, tapping a thoughtful finger on the rim of her cup. “The bones don't feel broken. It seems like a matter of nerve damage, though it’s difficult to say without knowing exactly what caused it. I’ll know more when I have a look.”

She has already examined your hand as Orvros did. Your confusion must show on your face, because she clarifies, “A look at the nerves inside.”

It takes a long moment for the realization to sink in. She means to—to cut you open, to pull back your skin and muscle and—no. This is not Seeing, not Restoration. No healer does this. _Elenwen_ never did this.

“What kind of a healer _are_ you?” you demand too loudly, shoving to your feet to get closer to the door.

Tethyls looks alarmed by the hand you have on your dagger's hilt, yet despite her wide eyes, her voice is calm and steady. “Sera,” she says gently, “are you not familiar with what a chirurgeon _does_? Oh, no. Don’t worry. It should be a quick operation. You won’t feel a thing.”

“You’re going to cut me open,” you accuse.

Rather than denying it, she insists, “You’ll be asleep. You won’t even remember it.”

She looks nothing like Colette or Danica or any of the other healers you trained under, but she has their command of the healer’s voice, the gravity that reassures people in terror and pain. When your stare jumps to the others in the room, you see that Lleddon has risen halfway from her chair in the corner, her arm outstretched, frozen, as if she meant to leap across the room to block your blade but couldn't overcome her fear. Yet Edris and Hlanule are gazing at you sedately, seeming not at all surprised by Tethyls' proposal and more bemused than anything by your threat.

Kyne. You have no choice but to trust them.

“Is this how it's done?” you ask shakily. “To fix the nerves?”

“It is if they've already healed badly,” Edris says, slow and absolute as any cornerstone of centuries-old knowledge. “An ill-set bone has to be re-broken. Scar tissue has to be cut out and regrown. The arts of repairing that which has healed badly are bloody, _muhrjul_.”

Re-taking your seat is as much self-humbling apology as it is a de-escalation of your panic. “All right,” you agree at last, speaking to your knees. “Thank you.”

After only a short moment of painful embarrassment, Edris clears his throat. “Of course, there is the matter of payment.”

“Of course!” you blurt, eager to mend your blunders. Then you have to swallow and smooth down your robes. “I don’t know if Revyn told you, but I’m… not well off, right now. As soon as I can travel, though, I’ll have the money to pay you back.”

Eyebrows knit, Edris glances at Hlanule. She utters a _tcch_ that defies translation and he grunts agreement.

“We’ve not charged much to our kin all these years,” Edris says, and your heart _leaps_ with hope. “How could we, when everyone came here with a little as we had? We’re not about to start now.”

In the corner of the room, Lleddon shifts on her chair. “Father—”

“It would be a shame to start now,” he says loudly. “To turn away a Dunmer in need.”

“Your grandchildren…”

“ _They have got a mother and father_ ,” he utters in Dunmeris, but these words are simple and dropped with enough angry enunciation that you catch most of them. “ _Ku'ilm vehn isk_ _muhrjul_ _? Ku'ilm n’oll him besda_?”

You’re distracted from the argument by Hlanule, who finally takes the pipe from her mouth and leans forward in her seat with a crackle-pop of old joints, hers and the chair's both. Slowly enough that you could withdraw if you wanted to—you don’t—she reaches out and pats you twice on the back of the hand. Then, with a few words to Tethyls, she pulls her cloak on tightly and limps out of the room, evidently done with the evening.

She has resolved to heal you, and you have promised to pay: it is settled enough for her.

Light-headed with relief, you sit back in your chair. It’s _dizzying—_

But when you open your eyes, it’s to see Tethyls frowning at you. As quickly as your relief came, it goes. (Did you not learn this already? It never stops.) Her quiet during the discussion of payment suddenly become ominous.

“You haven’t got any money at all, then,” she says.

You press a hand to the too-flat pouch of cut coin on your belt as if checking for a hundredth time might reveal more money than last time. “I have a little,” you say, the words feeling feeble. “Soon, though…”

“I need my payment up front.”

Surely if it was only a small loan, Revyn could spare the coin. You'd have it back to him within a week. Three weeks. When are taxes collected? “How much?”

“Four thousand septims.”

 _Unfair_. This is the only word that comes to you. After all this, all your work—after finding Revyn, finding these healers, sitting through that torturous examination, peeling back every layer of your hurt for them... and she demands _this_?

“That's _foul_ ,” you hiss, shooting to your feet.

Unlike before, Tethyls sweeps to own her feet to match you. Transformed by fury, she is towering and dire enough to make you flinch.

“No, boy, do you know what's _foul_?” She spits the word in vicious mimicry of you. “What is _foul_ is that I am a Master of the School of Restoration, once the Head Chirurgeon of House Hlaalu and all its client houses, renowned across Morrowind and beyond for my talent at delving and repairing the secret, delicate inner workings of the body. And now? Now I stand all day in a vat full of Nord _piss_ and mash hides into leather for a measly pittance of coin.”

Edris begins, “Tethyls!” but she waves him off as if slapping a flea.

“I have three children in my house, and seven grandchildren, not every one of them with a parent left alive!” she snarls. “I do not have the luxury of granting charity to the needy. Every day I work this job, you see, every day for almost twenty thankless _years_ , but if I miss but _one_ day it can be taken away from me. There are a hundred workers who could take my place. Good, hard working _Nords_ , most like.”

Her mockery is painful. Her _pain_ is worse. You want her to _stop_ but she is bleeding, suppurating like a wound.

“Every day that I sleep through from exhaustion after a chirurgery, I risk losing that curst job. If that skeever of a foreman noticed...” Tethyls draws a shuddering breath. “So yes, boy, every client I heal must pay enough to keep my family alive if I had to spend months seeking new work. If my clients were not so few and far between—“

She makes a harsh noise and snaps off the wistfulness. She refuses to weaken before you. “But they are. So you can pay or get out.”

“I'll get the gold,” you croak, hollowed from your gut through your soul. “I can get it. I _have_ it, I just have to go and get it.”

“So get it.”

“It's not here. I'd have to travel, and I can't—how do I travel like this!” You brandish your right hand, crab-clawed and liable to fail you at any moment. “If you fix my hand, if I can shoot again, then I can go. I swear, I'll—”

“Oh, you'll get the gold later,” Tethyls says, tired and heavy. “You'll be coming into money any day now. It's a sure thing, just not yet. Drals, I have _heard_ this. This is Windhelm.”

“I swear,” you whisper. “Please. Please.”

Tethyls only shakes her head.

 

* * *

 

With an appreciative whistle, somebody grasps your shoulders and pulls you upright from the icy cobblestones. Woozy and staggering, you lean into the supportive hold.

“Revyn, come and take your mad friend home,” a man calls.

A glaring beam of white light illuminates his face: grey, of course, though dark enough grey that you’d taken him for a Redguard on first dizzy glance, and scarred across his shaven scalp. Unlike most of the elves you’ve seen here, he’s wearing chain mail over his winter robes, and over that a much-mended crimson canvas sash that matches the one you're clinging to, the one wrapped across the chest of the elf holding you upright.

“Steady,” your man says. “Can you stay up?”

“He’s not mad,” Revyn says, arriving in a fluster as you bend and hack bloody spittle onto the street.

“’M not mad,” you agree, hands braced on your knees. One of your teeth is loose.

“You be quiet!” snaps Revyn. “You must be mad!”

“Look, we _did_ appreciate seeing that,” your man says, peering down at you. He's youngish compared to his partner, with only shallow forehead ridges that gentle his expression and keen eyes more interested than watchful. “Not many people around here try to take on Rolff any more. But you can’t be doing that in the future. We’ll have to arrest you.”

They’re guards, you finally realize, squinting in the magelight's glare. Their armour is a mismatched collection of cracked leather and scratched iron and something chitinous that resembles a cross between mud crab shells and dragon scales. The only thing they have that could pass as a weapon is a short, thick stick on a strap tied around the wrist of older man. Of course: they can’t be the _real_ guard. Not Stormcloak’s men. But they’re what the Grey Quarter has.

You remember that last time you were in Windhelm, that grating old woman Viola bent your ear complaining about how the Dunmer wouldn't “let” the Hold guard into their slum and it was that kind of gap in security that had the Butcher running amok. You'd wondered, then, how any people could keep the Hold guard out of any part of the city, no matter how nonconforming a people they were. Now you're just grateful there aren't any Nords in heavy boots around to witness you dislocating knuckles on Rolff Stone-Fist's face.

“Do you think he’ll be in trouble?” asks Revyn anxiously. Despite his apparent ire at you, he's holding your elbow as if to restrain you from leaping immediately into a new fight.

The shaven guard grunts and scratches the longest of his scars, still eyeing you as if he, too, expects you might yet punch someone else. “It’s not as though that drunken _s'wit_ can tell any of us apart,” he drawls. “But if his face is more hurt than his pride, he might haul the guard down here and pick someone out of a crowd.”

“ _Oh_ ,” you say, suddenly overwhelmed with dismay. “Have I—am I going to get someone arrested?”

The younger guard chuckles. “We know how to clear out when the snowbacks come marching in.”

“But you won't be doing this again,” his partner interrupts, far more stridently. “Are we clear? Revyn, take him home.”

Home sounds wonderful. Home. Bed. _Sleep_.

“I'm going to be sick.”

“Don't you dare,” Revyn snaps. “Ller—Drals, come on. Just...”

Hooked on Revyn's arm, you wobble away from the pool of magelight and the splatters of blood on the street: your and Rolff's. Mostly yours. Faces disappear from the windows overhead and shutters creak closed. Stendarr's mercy, your head hurts.

You think you may be sobering up.

“How are you this _drunk_?” Revyn demands, voice strained to a near hiss by his distress. “I bought you one drink! One!”

“I've been drunk all day,” you confess, and trip over a hole in the cobbles.

Swearing blasphemies and following each one up with a hasty apology, Revyn keeps you staggering along.

At last, he winds to a close and demands, “What is _wrong_ with you?”

Shame. Humiliation. Your throat closes up. Your heart clots.

“She's not going to heal me,” you croak, and stumble hard into Revyn to bury your face against his shoulder. He staggers but grabs you by reflex, stops walking and holds you. In the begrudging embrace, you shudder with misery. “She said she won't fix me.”

“Oh,” he says, ashen-quiet. “Oh.”

It's stupid, but as you're blinking tears into the shoulder of his work-worn cloak, you confess, “I'm so _angry_.” You don't feel it now, but certainly it was true enough five minutes ago when you erupted at Rolff. You heard him, then saw him standing in the street, bawling insults up at closed windows... and something inside you said _Yes. Violence_. “I'm always so angry.”

“Yes, well...”

“I didn't used to be like this.”

Revyn pats you gingerly on the back. You sniff and rub your cheek against him.

It's not until Revyn shifts, scraping his feet against the icy stones, that you remember it's full-on night, pitch black and freezing cold. Your booted feet are tingling with cold, and Revyn is standing in mere shoes. You draw back. He drops his embrace immediately.

“I'm sorry. I should go home.”

“Yes,” he says wearily. “Come on.”

But he's turned the wrong way. “No,” you say. “I mean, I'll go back to the Palace. I should. I'm sorry.”

“My store is closer.”

“I'll go. I'm sorry.”

It hurts, distantly, that he doesn't try to convince you any more. But gods, you've already worn him to the quick. You can see it on his face, easier to read than any Morrowind-reared elder.

“Don't get into any more fights,” is all he says, hurt and prickly.

With a wince, you duck your head and murmur, “Good night,” turning to leave.

A few steps down the street, Revyn calls, “Azura guide you,” half plaintive with apology. Then you hear his footsteps leaving as well.

 _So she does_ , you remind yourself, trying to cling tight to that thought as you begin the long, dark slog uphill back to the Palace, already shivering and exhausted and footsore. _She does_.

This is not the end of you. There is hope left for your recovery, even if Tethyls will not heal you without gold. It's just a matter of returning to the College.


	9. Ulfric (3)

_Blessed Kaan, Mother of Men, be thou the breath in my lungs that makes my heart beat for thee_.

You have always loved the sight of a long exhalation breaking white and smoky into the air before your face, the dissipation of your own life's breath into open sky made visible by Skyrim's cold. As a child you were amused by it. Master Arngeir taught you to see it for the small miracle that it is.

This early, early morning is a good one. You're the first one out of the Palace since the changing of the midnight watch, which means you have to lift the great iron-clad beam from its rack. The guards know you prefer to do it yourself. Heft—push... it makes you feel the weight of what you own, and what you owe for that owning.

The dark rectangle of sky framed by the Palace's rising courtyard wings is a perfectly even deep blue, saturated by the darkness of night just behind it. White hoarfrost covers the steps and flagstones in a fragile carpet. You're forced to begin crushing it as you step outside.

You rarely dress elaborately for a visit to the temple. Among your people and before your god, what do you need of armour or gold? This morning is no exception: a quilted jacket over shirtsleeves and trousers will do. The weather yet requires no furs.

You greet the guards standing duty with a few words before you enter the temple. As you pause to let your eyes adjust to the dimmer light, you're surprised to find you're not alone despite the hour: Jora is already awake, heavy-eyed, and lighting candles in a nearby sconce from a taper.

She also seems startled by you, but murmurs, “Good morning, Jarl Ulfric.”

It's strange: her panic has lasted too long to have been caused by the door opening. “I'm sorry to have startled you.”

“Not at all,” she says, but her gaze flickers to the floor. This avoidance, coming from your priestess of Talos, is enough to take you aback. What does she...

Then you see why. Silhouetted darkly in the low-lit stone chamber is a lone figure seated in a pew near the front, occupying the otherwise empty temple. Your second, slower look tells you more. From the hunch and slouch of their body, tucked angle-wise into a corner of the pew, the figure is upright but fast asleep, not at prayer. And the ear slipping through a curtain of black hair is sharp and grey.

“I found him in the doorway last night,” Jora explains, evenly enough, but her mouth is pulling unhappily. “I thought I should bring him in out of the cold for a while. And he was injured.” She adds it on as if enough excuses will placate you.

It's true: you're not happy, either. In part it's because your High Priestess is standing before you ashamed of having granted mercy to an unfortunate. Some hard kernel of unalterable self tells you that this is not the sort of man your father raised you to be. But still, you wonder how often Jora lets homeless elves sleep away the small hours of the night in the last free, holy shrine of Talos in the Empire—elves who, in the daytime, would refuse Talos' divinity and roll their eyes at the temple's doors attracting crowds of pilgrim faithful. By her shamefaced look, it's regularly rather than rarely.

“When he fell asleep, I just... let him be.”

 _It's morning now_ , you mean to snap—and, drawing breath to say it, you take one last look at the elf.

You stop.

His robes are no longer charcoal but blue, and his body and face are turned away from the grey light of the high southern window, but there's no mistaking that axe-bridged nose, sharp as the prow of an icebreaking ship. You don't know whether it's been ten times broken or if elven faces merely grow that way: hard, bony, overproud. But you know him.

“It's all right,” you say. “You can go about your duties.”

“I can tell him to leave,” Jora says, clearly anxious. She thinks you mean to handle the matter roughly, most like.

In a temple? Never. And not with this particular elf, though she can't know that. (Though you would be tempted, with any other elf. The knowledge is shameful.) “No. I'd like to speak with him.”

You step past her and move up the left-hand aisle, leaving Jora wringing her hands behind you. She'll see and calm down soon enough.

Up close, the Dragonborn's unconscious huddle is even more uncomfortable and fragile than it looked from a distance. At first you're startled by the lurid slash of crimson all across his face: Jora said he was _injured_ , but that amount of fresh blood is horrific. Then... no. It's paint, or most of it is. His face is swollen around both eyes and on one wide cheekbone, and his thin lower lip is split, black-scabbed. Blood only half-wiped last night has dried in dark smears down from his nostrils and chin.

Wordlessly, you settle on the same pew as the Dragonborn, half a bench-length away. Whether it's the scuff of your boots, the shift of the pew, or some other unconscious sense that alerts him, he wakes instantly, silently: a sharp breath, a stiffening.

(How sudden. How still he is. You hadn't expected this from the man who woke you with screaming three nights out of the last five.)

Eyes still shut, the Dragonborn shifts slightly more upright, pretending to have been only praying with his eyes closed.

“I'd expected you to return to the Palace last night,” you say quietly, mindful how even a low voice carries in this hall.

After a long moment, the elf opens his eyes. He stares down at the pew in front of him, though, not at you. “I meant to,” he says, then winces and touches his split lip. “Ah. Your guard didn't let me.”

“What?”

“The guards on the door didn't recognize me,” he says, with a touch of that rueful inappropriate humour that never reaches his flat eyes. “For some reason, they didn't believe I had a standing invitation to the Palace—assuming I do still have that invitation.”

He glances at you. You nod shortly.

“I argued for a while. Then one said that if I didn't go, he'd drag me back down to the Quarter by my ears.”

“With your face like that, I'm not surprised they didn't believe you.”

Brow furrowed, he only dabs at his lip with his thumb and hisses. The flare of gold light around his fingertips makes you flinch. It's all you can do to bite back a curse—and a worse reaction—at his casting, to content yourself with watching in surly silence as the cut lip swells and shrinks. The flesh becomes shiny-red edged and then closes in grey, tender, healed.

“You might have done that last night and saved yourself all this trouble,” you snap.

Still not looking at you, the elf tugs out a wrinkled handkerchief and wipes his bloody chin. “The last thing I want to do is give you a bad impression of the College, Jarl Stormcloak,” he says, “but the very first lesson they teach there is that you don't cast drunk.”

“Were you, then.”

“I had help with that.”

He's not wrong. (How many drinks did you pour him? Enough to keep a dungeon-thinned man intoxicated for hours?) Cold-bitten by angry shame, you turn your eyes up to the statue of Talos and ignore the Dragonborn for a while.

“I never meant to fall asleep here,” the elf mutters eventually. His tone is an awful combination of tentative and apologetic.

If he means to beg forgiveness—whether the intent is conscious or beaten-in—he fails. It only makes you _burn_. You hate everything about this broken guilt. There's no apologizing for past wrongs, whether they were mistakes or choices. It changes nothing.

“In the future, leave this place for the faithful,” you tell him acridly.

The last thing you expected is the rusty laugh the Dragonborn chokes up. “Do you think I'm not?”

“The faithful of _Talos_.”

“So I am.”

The quiet conviction finally makes you turn to look at him again. Still he doesn't meet your stare, but now it's because he has lifted his chin at last, tipped his bruise-lidded eyes up to Talos with his mighty sword, shadow-faced and crowned in dawn's light coming through the windows high above.

Afire with sudden astonishment, you _need_ to know more. But the Dragonborn doesn't go on. He never gives up information without prompting—not unless he's drunk—and you don't blame him. You know why.

“I didn't expect that,” is all you say, careful to pare it of any emotion that might offend. Now is not the time to fight the elf's balky temper at being recognized as an _elf_ rather than a Nord. That you didn't expect him to believe in Talos is the complete truth... if only the barest outline of what you're thinking right now. Your mind is utterly awhirl.

“I wasn't always,” the Dragonborn admits, giving back one bit of the tale in exchange. “Arkay and Akatosh and Kyne, yes. Effra and Jiub and... I didn't—I didn't think Talos was _false_. The way the grandfathers talked... they never could agree if he was Ysmir or Akatosh or both, or if they were all different. But I didn't really...” The long line of his throat flexes as he swallows hard. His hands on his thighs have gone tight-knuckled. “I wasn't devout. Not until this.”

That, at least, doesn't surprise you. That... makes as much sense as any elf worshipping the hero-god of mankind can. Most people are not devout these days, elves and Nords and Imperials alike. Many only find faith in the gods just in time to beg them for assistance. Like the thief you once shared a gallows-cart with, indiscriminately pleading for life from every Divine he could think of.

Yet it galls that the elf only turned to Talos in a time of crisis. Whether that crisis was Alduin or Elenwen, you don't know. It doesn't matter. You dislike the thought of a Dragonborn whose worship is cheap.

“What do you pray for?” you ask, before you can curb the urge to question, to _demand_.

His eyes flash over to you full of sudden fire, red-in-red amidst his paint and blood. “What do _you_ pray for?”

 _There_.

You draw slow breath, once, before you speak.

“I pray for my people.” You lay the words down like paving stones, not a challenge. “I pray for the men and women fighting in the name of their land and their freedom, and those who cannot fight any more. I pray that the day will come when they will not need to fight any longer, but until then, I pray for their courage and their strength.” You have to consider for a moment, but you decide to give this last thing up, knowing that you only seem to get from the Dragonborn in equal measure to what you have given. “And mine.”

It satisfies, his expression. As you spoke, eyes locked on his, you watched his face yield, his angry slash of a mouth soften. Now what most dominates is faint bafflement. He has seen you, measured you, and found that you do not match the image he'd held.

 _Strength_ , he mouths, as if to himself. “You of all people,” he says at last. “I didn't think...”

What _did_ he think?

Shaking his head once, the Dragonborn looks away. Shame has returned to him—again, again. Again.

“I ask for guidance,” he confesses to the flagstones. “I need it. What do I do? Who better to ask than the Divine who was Dragonborn himself?”

His smile is _ugly—_ not because his face is ugly, sharp and unfamiliar though it is, but because the expression is counterfeit. It's anger twisted out of shape, like his laughter, like his jokes.

(This was a terrible idea, inviting him here. Speaking to him. You cannot look at him without... without distraction. Without wondering: did you look like this? No, of course not. Your anger always came plain. It still does.)

(But when it came, did people _see—_ )

“Stupid,” he breathes. “Stupid young fool, wasn't I.”

 _What an arrogant young fool you are_.

“ _No_ ,” you utter, far too sharply. It echoes in the empty hall. The Dragonborn snaps his head up to stare at you.

The shock of memory is so severe that your skin tightens painfully, hair pulling on your scalp. That turn of phrase cannot be a coincidence. You know it too well. And the Dragonborn is forty-six, he's not young—not to anybody save the unnaturally old, that is.

“Put those words out of your head,” you command, boring into him with your eyes as if you could look in, find the place where the memories sit and just _rip her out_. “Don't dwell on them. Don't give them weight. Don't make them true.”

Startled, the Dragonborn tries to draw back in the pew, to widen the already wide space between you. The connection is gone. He's not seeing the thing you see in him, not hearing the only important thing you have to say on the matter, not...

“ _Don't_ ,” you insist, one last attempt.

“That's easy for you to say,” he whispers, low-browed and sullen.

You lock your jaw up so hard that it hurts. It's either that or explode. No, this is the hardest thing you will ever try to tell him or yourself or anyone. He doesn't know the half of it. Not yet.

Talos guide him, because you can't.

“The temple will be open to the public soon.”

He hears what you are implying without forcing you to be so crass as to give the order out loud. His face shutters like a window, the last of his softness vanishing again. As he stands, his whole body tightens, drawn up and in from shoulders to chin as if to stand against you.

“Good day, Jarl Stormcloak.” Without bothering to bow at all, the Dragonborn slips out of the pew. Then, defiant, he walks around to the front of the temple, the feet of Talos, and lays a hand on the hilt of the stone shrine-blade.

A leap of anger—a small handful of heartbeats—and the Dragonborn exhales. His prayer, if he gave one, was short. His hand slips off the shrine as he turns towards the door and leaves, measured steps resounding in the heavy silence.

 

* * *

 

For all that it began strangely, the day is as usual. You pray alone, then speak with your people as they trickle in to their own worship. These days, as many of them are strangers to Windhelm as are native to it, but you still count them among your people. When the temple has filled, your time there is over.

Just after daybreak, Sifnar and Hjanna serve the morning meal. The clatter of the guard serving up their own food in the Bloodworks belowstairs fills the hall to accompany the quiet conversation between you, Galmar, Yrsarald and the handful of others. Jora’s husband Lortheim is present to give the blessing, as ever, and there is also Jarl Korir’s niece Fryske Green-Helm, who has been staying at the Palace to study in the library over the summer. On occasion she still tries to pass along her uncle’s opinions, which is the far-from-secret diplomatic purpose to her presence here, but there’s only so many times she can repeat words that she herself is tired of having heard for years.

The Dragonborn doesn’t appear for the meal. It irritates you that you’re... disappointed, perhaps. Why should anything have changed after yesterday, or this morning? If anything, those meetings are likely to have driven him farther from you rather than drawn him nearer.

After breakfast: the war room. The new maps from yesterday dominate discussion. Spurred to new urgency by concrete knowledge of the Thalmor Embassy's location in the mountains of Haafingar, you and Galmar argue strategy for potential approaches on the isolated hold. The only available land route is Dragon Bridge, of course—unless you manage to build a bridge somewhere higher or lower on the Karth River, as Galmar occasionally ponders—but there’s still the question of whether to come to the crossing from the east or the south. (A south-east crossing through Whiterun and up the Harald River, though direct, would leave your troops hemmed in by rough terrain and hostile holds on both flanks. And it would require facing Imperial troops on relatively open land, where the Legion definitely holds the advantage over your loosely organized soldiers and ambush tactics.) East requires a winter approach through Hjaalmarch when the marshes are frozen solid, so it’s only possible if the timing is right. Right now you’re seething that your troops are not yet prepared to make the advance this upcoming winter. South requires breaking through the Reach, which means dealing with the Forsworn as well as the Legion.

“With any luck, they’ll kill each other for us,” you suggest, and Galmar laughs. It hasn’t happened yet, though.

The idea of taking Solitude by sea is an appealing one, but a fantasy best relegated to the old tales from which it comes. There isn’t a fleet of longships to be had that could move enough troops across the Sea of Ghosts quickly enough to mount an attack, even if you were to withdraw all your soldiers from the positions across Skyrim that they are already holding. It’s not a question of timber: that, Eastmarch has, and the Rift has more. It’s a matter of men and money.

Realistically you’ve barely got the iron and wool to arm and armour your troops. The provisions to feed them over the winter are half imaginary, based on the expectation that they can supplement rye and potatoes with hunted meat. (This assumes the weather will be good. At least you already know from last winter that your farmer-soldiers can string trap lines better than they can wield axes.) But carpenters and smiths and other skilled tradesmen? Hammers and nails and pitch? Windhelm already has a sawmill, powered by the great water wheel on the river, but before you could even start building you would have to construct a shipyard. Solitude and its three shipyards, one dedicated to supporting the East Empire Company alone, is the real source of Skyrim’s naval power. Small wonder that Tullius hasn't appropriated a fleet and marshalled a naval attack of his own yet, really.

So no, there is no fleet to be had. You cannot simply cut the head off the Imperial dragon in Solitude and then rout the Dominion from the mountains. The rest of the beast will have to be conquered first, by word or by war.

After noontide: it’s Morndas, and the hall is open to citizens. Jorleif has a list of petitioners whose concerns have been vetted and prioritized. Somehow, Viola Giordano managed to make it onto this list. An audible sigh goes around the hall when she steps up, brandishing one of her leaflets. The city’s printers must adore her, but few others do.

“There’s no reason to think the Butcher won’t return this winter!” she insists. “He was active through all of last winter, and he only stopped in the spring. Who’s to say he won’t be back, especially since the guard has gone downhill?”

“Women also died in the summer,” you remind her tersely. “Even if they weren’t mutilated enough to make you a satisfying story. The guard handled all those criminals easily, as it always does. And as it happens, I recall announcing months ago that the so-called Butcher is currently imprisoned in the dungeons.”

“The _suspected_ Butcher. They never did actually find him, did they? How do you _know_?”

She’s shuffled off in a tide of discontented murmurs from the crowd.

“Don’t put her on that list again,” you tell Jorleif in an undertone.

A smaller number of citizens make it through to speak after the vetted petitioners are done. You don’t even realize that one is a dark elf until she’s standing in front of you, pushing her hood back to speak. At your side, Jorleif hisses between his teeth that she slipped through.

Annoyed at the waste of time, you listen with your chin on one hand as she complains about farms in the river valley being raided by bandits. It’s not a new story. You’ve already heard it more accurately told by the Hold patrol.

“A bounty has been posted,” you explain. “Next time check with the captain of the guard if you have further complaints.”

After: the board is spread for the evening meal. Wuunferth appears to eat, so Fryske does not. Nor does the Dragonborn.

While Galmar is occupied in conversation with the head of the Hold patrol, you lean toward Yrsarald and ask, “Has he been seen at all today?”

You realize only afterward that the unspecified 'he' might give you away as being too fixated on the Dragonborn: so focused that there could be only one 'he' on your mind. Yrsarald understands who you mean, though, so he can hardly count it against you.

“Not that I've seen,” he says, frowning.

“Check on him. Find a reason.”

Yrsarald seems to understand that you're not eager to have Galmar overhear, because he slides your distracted housecarl a glance before replying in an undertone. “Ulfric, if you want to know about him, you may have to ask him yourself.”

“It's not about getting information,” you say, irritated. “I haven't got the time to be spending on him. Do you care or not?”

To your surprise, all Yrsarald does is give you a long, bland look. He's not normally given to such indifference under criticism. “Do you?”

Scowling, you go back to your dinner in pointedly cold silence. What stings is not Yrsarald's words, but your own error in provoking them. You must remember: for all that Yrsarald is not what Galmar is to you, for all that his dedication is far more fealty than faith, he is still among your oldest companions. He still knows you well enough to spot flaws in your performance that few others would ever find—to know that if you've dedicated any time at all to something, then it means you care.

(This was a terrible idea, inviting the elf here. He's a distraction.)

You give it two more days, grinding your teeth, and then you take matters into your own hands.

 

* * *

 

This time, you don't summon the Dragonborn by showing up at his door in person. You'd thought, then, that he might react better to a personal request than a formal summons. Instead he'd acted as though you might hurt him for refusing. (Of course he did. But at the time, you hadn't imagined that _anyone_ could see Elenwen in you.) This time you pen a polite, formal invitation to dinner and send it with Hjanna at the morning meal.

Strange: it's been a long time since you practiced such manners with anybody living at the Palace. These days there is nobody in your court but those already long familiar and closely allied. Even before you broke into open rebellion against the Empire, you had ceased to play friendly politics with the other Jarls. They knew too well that you would not court again, nor hold up false appearances of friendship with social visits.

Before the board is cleared, Hjanna returns with a note in response:

 

_Jarl Stormcloak,_

_Thank you for your kind invitation. I would be pleased to dine with you this evening._

_Lleros Ulawayn_

 

It sounds far too much like a platitude, especially coming from the elf whom you last saw stalking out of the temple in anger. Still, it's cooperation. You can try again to work forward from there, fruitless as your efforts always seem to be.

The Dragonborn appears for dinner at seven bells, punctually fetched to the small, private dining room by Jorleif. Still in the doorway, he bows curtly to you. It's an utterly uncharacteristic exercise in manners. By the way he's rubbing his thumb, he's nervous.

“There's hot water in the basin,” you say politely, setting aside your book. He murmurs thanks and sets to washing his hands as you uncork the wine.

Out of the corner of your eye, you watch. Finally, his hair is once more tied back as it was when you first met him, with the exception of a small braid that hangs by the side of his face: Nordic, familiar yet strange on a dark elf. The rest of his bruises have been healed away. His face, freshly painted, is impossible to wash in full, but he dabs his mouth and chin clean and dry with the corner of the towel. It's clear that he already washed and changed for the evening before he came, but still he cleans beneath his nails and tugs at the cuffs of his shirt, which is faintly threadbare at the elbows—surely not one from the wardrobe in his room. Where did he get that from?

You briefly consider reminding him that a well-washed man has no need to be ashamed of his clothing, but dismiss it. His nerves are not your affair, and you already know his pride would take your concern as insult.

You don't give the silence time to settle once he's seated across from you. The table and the room are too small to allow that sort of awkwardness. Careful to keep your tone mild, you say, “There aren't many people who would refuse a summons from a Jarl, but I did wonder if you might be one of them.”

It's a joke. His eyebrows flicker as though he's not sure whether to laugh or scowl. “I considered it,” he admits, falsely light in return.

Good. You can make headway with a show of manners, even if they will eventually give way to what lies beneath.

“What changed your mind?”

“The food at your table is always very good.”

You let yourself smile and pour wine—for yourself. As the host, of course, you have to offer it to him as well, but you let the bottle hover over his cup and wait for permission. There is a conspicuous pitcher of water on the table as well. No ale, no mead.

“A little,” he says. “Thank you.”

When you've started serving yourself, he fills the rest of his cup with water, thinning the wine like an Imperial. You want to ask where an elf from the deep Reach learned that custom, but again you suspect he'd take it as an insult.

“You might be interested to know that we've found your map very useful,” you comment, watching him in your peripheral vision as you spear roasted leeks onto your plate.

His knife stills. “Ah. ...Yes. That's—that's good. I'm glad.”

The response is not so much lacklustre as stifled. “I hope you can understand why I asked what I did,” you continue, gently probing the weakness. “I'm not a cruel man. But there is too much at stake to give up any advantage that might help loosen the Dominion's hooks out of Skyrim.”

The elf's utensils click down loudly. You look at him mildly over the rim of your cup. He's staring down at his plate with too much intensity to really be seeing it, hands braced on the table as if to support himself against a great weight. With a knot of tension in your chest, you wait to see if you've upset the balance already.

“Jarl Stormcloak, please.” His words come out thick, like each one costs him dearly. “Can I ask you to just—just be honest with me. Please.”

You hold your silence until he finally looks up to meet your stare, because _this_... this you will not have him mistake. “Dragonborn, I have always been honest with you.”

He swallows, still looking at you timid from under his lashes, eyes deep-shadowed and hollow. “Then can I be blunt?”

 _I don't see that manners have ever stopped you_ , you think, but the fact that _fear_ is clearly stopping him now keeps you from uttering the words. “By all means.”

“Please. Tell me what this is about. Are you trying to win me over to your side? Is that what this is?”

You had other words planned for this, other times and places in mind. Now is far from the optimal time to press this matter. Very rarely do you let others dictate the terms of discussion, either. Does this elf understand what a small company of men he is counted among? But if what he wants is unambiguous truth, honesty stripped of all your eloquence and fire—well. You know better than most that short words are still powerful.

Shrugging, you admit, “Yes.”

Somehow, the Dragonborn seems not to have expected that. Sitting back in his chair, he actually opens and closes his mouth without words.

“I want you at my side very much,” you continue. As you promised him, it is the honest truth—in a sense. Yes, you want the Dragonborn to fight at your side. _This_ Dragonborn... but you must take what the gods give you. The wheel has not yet finished turning. Perhaps there is time yet for the world to prove your doubt unfounded. “You could make a tremendous difference. Who better to show the world what the damned Thalmor really are than you?”

His fist white-knuckled on the table, chin lifted as if to take a punch, he announces, “My answer is no.”

Despite decades of practice, it takes effort to keep your expression calm as you take a sip of wine. “That's disappointing,” you comment, when you have full control of your voice. “Why?”

He, too, seems to be having difficulty keeping his voice steady. It's not a flattering comparison. “I told you already. My duty is to Skyrim first. All of it. Even if I... I'm badly off enough already. I can't get involved in a war.”

There are a dozen things you could say to refute that claim, and a dozen more about his weakness. In the face of his ashen frailty, of his downturned stare and bent shoulders, you know that none of them are right. You cannot reason or slap him out of this. All you can do right now is...

(remember how Galmar stood watch outside your room for months, every night black-eyed tired in the corridor even after you'd cursed him brutally for it, remember how you always woke to him pressing your fist tight around your amulet of Talos so you'd know who he was before you knew where _you_ were— remember how Jorlief returned again and again to give you advice no matter how many times you forgot it in a fit of temper—remember how your father would—)

Wait. And keep trying.

“I have a proposal.” Businesslike, you go back to your food. Prompted, the Dragonborn picks up his utensils a moment later, glancing hesitantly between you and his plate. “Let me persuade you. Give me as much time as you gave Elisif.”

He looks up sharply, expression sharpened for the moment into bright and hard alertness. “I never made a secret of that,” he says, as if you'd accused him of something.

No, it wasn't a secret. Your people in Solitude had sent you word almost as soon as the Dragonborn had entered the Blue Palace last autumn, almost fully a year ago now. You cursed him at a distance more than once as the letters piled on, telling how the Dragonborn had gone from taking a bounty in some dank little cave to somehow routing out an entire coven of necromancers intent on resurrecting the Wolf Queen. It hadn't even taken a spy for you to get rumours of the Dragonborn being invited to wait out the bitter cold of Evening Star in the Blue Palace as Elisif's personal guest.

“If you're as neutral as you say you are, Dragonborn, surely you can let me at least try. I'm sure Tullius did.”

His expression is tight and wary—far from happy with this deal—but slowly, he nods. “All right. By all means, Jarl Stormcloak. Convince me.”

The half smile you give him is nearly genuine. “Some other time.” His surprise is a pleasure, even separate from the fact that it satisfies you to keep him slightly off balance. “That's not why I asked you here. All I want to do is talk.”

“Talk,” he repeats, every inch of him skeptical. “Is this really worth your time?”

Talos, if only you _didn't_ have better things to do with your time. This is necessary, though. There is a power in understanding the essence of something—maybe the only power in the world—and you need that understanding if you are to make progress with him. “Why not?” you say, brows raised. “We live in a time of legends, and I don't intend to let it pass by untouched. I want to know who the Dragonborn is.”

At first his face is still, and then slowly a kind of disbelieving amusement suffuses him. Smiling crookedly, he gives you the longest, wryest look that anyone has ever dared to level at you. “Tell me, then,” he says. “Do you even know my name?”

Curse him.

Attempting the word you've only seen on parchment, you say, “Laeross.”

The broadening smile that he scarcely tries to hide tells you what you already knew: that you pronounced his damned elf name wrong.

“Lleros,” he repeats, rhyming the last part with Talos. It's far less Nordic than you made it sound, some soft-mouthed slur without a strong consonant to be found.

Your nostrils flare in annoyance. The elf—Lleros—ducks his head, but you can still see that his mouth is tight-lipped with suppressed humour.

“Ulawayn,” he says, possibly knowing that you will never even attempt his second name. The first syllable comes out powerfully Nordic, like your own name pronounced in your mother's burr, or Galmar's: _Ú_ _lfric_. The rest, though, is the usual jumble of elven vowels.

Unable to grit your teeth and smile through his mockery, you say, “I hope that's not something you're sharing with everyone. There are Imperial spies everywhere.”

Immediately, Lleros' humour is gone. “I've been using a different name,” he says stiffly. “But I'm surprised your security would be so weak.”

 _Gently_ , you remind yourself at the last moment. “The less people talk, the stronger it is. But that's a discussion for some other time.”

Silver screeches against enamel as he stabs a thick slice of roasted beetroot with his fork. “This is your conversation,” he says through clenched teeth. “What shall we talk about?”

You will admit that there are a few things you genuinely want to know. How closely do the details of his story match up to the sort of legend you always imagined a Dragonborn would live? You fear disappointment, but still... you want to know. If only, as Yrsarald says, to hear it from Lleros himself.

“Tell me... what is it like to slay a dragon?”

He contemplates his food with furrowed brows. “It hurts,” Lleros says at last. It comes out flat, nothing like the Reach-slanted tale-teller's voice that he could have slipped into. “Like any hard fight, I suppose. Bruises, bashes, scrapes. Dirt everywhere. If you don't dodge and dive around, a dragon'll just tear you in half. Seen too many idiots get themselves killed like heroes that way.”

“No different than a bandit raid, then. I'm surprised.”

“Bandits you can at least shoot from a distance, if you're quick enough. I prefer that.”

“I heard the Greybeards call you even from here, though it was faint,” you say, pushing for more detail. “I've never known them so speak so loudly in all my life. I'm almost surprised that anything could make them turn their eyes down from the sky.”

He snorts. “Surprise is one word for it.”

You take a sip of wine to keep your frustration hidden. He's doing this on purpose, giving you begrudging nothings to fulfil the letter of your bargain, to say that he gave you a chance. You got a far more detailed story from Vignar Gray-Mane's letter about the dragon-killing at the Western Watchtower.

“How did you find High Hrothgar?”

“Cold.” Insolently, he pauses to take a long drink. “I tried to count the steps, but I lost track. I don't suppose it really matters.”

“I counted almost five-thousand, once.”

Lleros' gaze flicks back to you, suddenly bright and watchful.

 _Ah_. “It made the climb twice as long as it needed to be,” you continue, giving him more. “But it must have been the sixth time I'd gone up. I knew the way. I just wanted to know if the builders had really put in the dedication to make a clean seven thousand.”

“They didn't?”

“The snow was too deep near the top. By the time it melted, supplies had started coming up regularly again, and I didn't have to go back down.”

“When I went, I took supplies up. Klimmek asked—do you know Klimmek?”

The name resounds: a boy of nineteen or so, seemingly adult to your child self, frightening in his bitter jealousy. “He was a few years older than me back then.”

“He asked if I'd carry things up for him, since I was going anyway. It almost killed me. The weight alone—they talk a lot about breath, the Greybeards, but I could barely get any air.”

“The world feels thinner up there.”

Lleros gives you a long look, searching for something. It strikes you that however strange he is to look at, however sharp-faced and eerie-eyed, he knows what you mean in a way that nobody else can, except for five very old men who will never look at you again.

“The air and the cold were bad enough, but the frost troll...”

He warms, very slightly, to the story and its telling. As long as you keep matching his words, he keeps giving, more and more, the tale unwinding in fragments about High Hrothgar. He's only surrendering trivial things, of course—how blistered his feet were from the climb; how the ceilings were so high, and he felt so small; how he thought he could hear voices in the wind screaming around the monastery while he tried to sleep—but so are you. How, in eight years, you never saw the glittering haze of spindrift fully clear away from the peak even on the stillest days. How sleet-eagles would nest on the window ledges every spring. You hope that what you get is worth what you're paying.

This time, when you nudge Lleros again about the Western Watchtower, he tells you. It was green, the dragon, like algaed bronze. In the hollow where its belly once was, between skeletal ribs, they found a Hold guard's uniform caked in charcoal. It was Jarl Balgruuf's housecarl who struck the fatal blow, not Lleros himself.

Brows knit, half-lost in the worrying memory, he murmurs, “It was smaller than the first one.”

“The one at Helgen.” When he nods, startled back to the present, you let out a long breath. “I never thought I'd live to see one.”

“They're not like the legends say.”

You could say the same of him. His face goes too soft and unhappy when he murmurs about 'the grandmothers' telling stories in the Reach. No saga ever had a hero who held yarn for old women knitting socks. And is it useful, this knowledge? No—except for the fact that he's still giving to you, bit by bit. The expression on Lleros' face suggests that this reminiscence is as much for his benefit as yours.

You will not give in return, though. Not on this matter of hearths and the tender things of childhood. As tactfully as possible, hoping that this won't break his willingness to speak, you ask, “How long has your family been in the Reach, then?”

For a moment, you think Lleros is about to stiffen up again. He lifts his chin to face you squarely and says, “Almost a hundred years,” as if it's a challenge.

A hundred years is nothing to the old clans of Skyrim. Your throne was the seat of Ysgramor himself. But you don't let this show on your face as you look back at the Dragonborn in interest. To have you keen, watching, waiting on his word—does it do the same to him as to you?

“Eighty, I suppose,” he says, relenting a little. You have passed. “My parents, they met in Skyrim. In the Pale Pass, actually. They were both coming up from Cyrodiil. My mother had taken a job to deliver something to the Mages College—she was a sellsword—and my father was just... moving on, I suppose. He wandered for years after Morrowind. Effra hadn't told him to stop walking.”

At last, Lleros has found a topic that he warms to. Halting only at first, he soon goes on and on without prompting, almost urgent now, as if you might stop him from talking. Every word seems to be a challenge now: _look, listen, hear what my parents did_. He wants to prove himself to you through them.

They both escaped Morrowind just before the Red Year, he says. His father had a vision sent by that saint of his, Effra: _walk and don't look back_. So his father, an indentured servant, stole his master's staff and ran south in the night, not knowing why. (Indenturement near to slavery, Lleros says. Barbarism. There has been no slavery in Skyrim for centuries.) His mother was some kind of soldier, caught by lizards in the Black Marsh and pressed into service for several years before she escaped into Cyrodiil, by then years after Morrowind was in ruins. So they wandered, gardener-servant and sell-sword, both little better than vagrants for over a century. And Lleros is _proud_ of this?

You _do_ want to stop his talking now. This has nothing to do with him; it's as irrelevant to you as any interminable story out of the Grey Quarter. But you force yourself to keep listening intently, humming and nodding at the right places.

They met in the Pale Pass, lone grey faces in the crowd. They travelled together, separated when the father broke his ankle, and were apart for a year before the mother finally bothered to return and see if he'd waited for her like he said he would. In the meantime, he'd set roots into the little village where he'd been injured and insisted that she would stay if she wanted to be courted, because he was farming and that was that.

(Lleros chuckles. He doesn't seem to notice that your smile is too dry.)

The father was trained to grow herbs for magical use, not Reachland barley and beans. He had work, but not good work. The locals didn't want dark elves on their land.

(An old, tired story. Disappointing.)

“So one night,” Lleros is saying, bright-eyed with delight, “at the inn, there was a fight. Alabard Hill-Singer said my father would never have a farm—Alabard owns most of the land there—and my father made him a bet. If he could run a profit on a new farm within a year, he'd get to keep the land. And Alabard was drunk, so he said fine, here's the coin, here's a deed to the land, I'll see you fail.”

Lleros outright laughs into his wine. He's not drunk on wine but the story. Either way, the joy he's taking in this sordid tale is unsettling.

“So my father gets on a horse in the middle of the night, half drunk himself, and rides all the way to Markarth. He rode for days, and then he went straight to the Jarl and bought the land. He was afraid Alabard might have sobered up and gotten a courier to Markarth before him to tell the Jarl not to sell it. Alabard was furious when my father got back with the bill of sale. And my mother, she was furious when she found out he'd bought a _farm_. She left for a full week before she came back.”

No doubt, if her husband was in the habit of riding off drunk in the middle of the night.

“It turned out the land was terrible: a little bit of rock and hill. That's why nobody was farming it already. But it doesn't take tilled soil to grow herbs. So they worked and they worked—broke their backs all summer—and it was close. So close. But by the winter, they'd earned more than the land cost.”

“Alabard tried to have the Jarl annul the sale, of course,” Lleros adds, sniffing in distaste. “He didn't want my father keeping the farm. Said it wasn't right. But the Jarl said no, it was a legal contract. My father won the bet and Alabard couldn't have the land back. And we've had it ever since.”

He smiles at you, deeply satisfied. There: the proud conclusion to his family's tale. His father is a cheat and a thief.

Stiffly, you ask, “This was Jarl Hrolfdir, then?”

“Ah... yes? Yes, I think. We never had much to do with Markarth.”

“Interesting.”

It's too cool a response. Caution touches Lleros' expression, giving him back the hunted edge of a deer remembering its fear. “What about it?”

“Nothing important. When you said—”

“No.”

The incredulous stare you train on Lleros makes him falter and swallow, but from somewhere he dredges up steel and perseveres through his fear.

“No, Jarl Stormcloak. Be honest with me.”

“About what, exactly? I don't owe you every thought that crosses my mind.”

“I have seen that expression before,” he says, every word taut. “I know that look. What do you find so wrong with my father owning a farm?”

Talos, how he _presumes_. Worse, he has the audacity to be outraged at _you_ for some imagined slight against—what, his race? Low-voiced with anger, you utter, “Your father doesn't own that farm. He stole it.”

Lleros' eyes fly wide with fury, catching enough direct light that the cores of them flare forge-fire red. “He _bought_ it!”

“He tricked it away from a drunk man,” you snap.

“The Jarl himself agreed it was a legal contract!”

“I would never agree that!” And nor would have Igmund, had he been on the throne then. Whatever sort of law-keep Hrolfdir had advising him, you hope the fool is long dead, or—

“Oh!” Lleros shouts, and your fork trembles against the ceramic plate—because of his _voice_ , not any physical movement of the table. “ _You_ wouldn't! It must be wrong then, because _you_ wouldn't agree, Jarl Stormcloak, and we know your word is infallible.”

You can't tell what makes your axe-hand itch more, the Dragonborn's insolence or the ragged edge of danger that is his voice. All the same, you will put an end to it. “I will not be spoken to like this.”

“You won't?” Lleros repeats. You can tell that you've made him nervous by the way his fists clench, his chest pulls for breath, but all the same his tone wavers with mockery. “Oh, you _won't_. I see. You'll just tell me what you'd like to hear me say, then, and I'll say it, shall I? I'll just—”

“That's enough!”

“I will _not_ —”

The door crashes open against the wall as Galmar shoves into the dining room, panting. Lleros chokes on his words, flinching away from the violent movement so hard that he nearly tips his chair over. He stumbles to his feet and stands there swaying, defiant, trapped between you and Galmar.

“Tell me this,” Lleros says, before Galmar can speak. Despite the distracting paint and the grey of his skin, a high flush of colour shows in his cheeks and ears. “Tell me. If my father had bought the land in a way that pleased you, would you care that he owned it?”

“He didn't,” you insist in a growl. You will not concede this point, not to some dark elf wretch the same as any other. “That farm is stolen Nord land.”

Lleros lets out a shaking breath. “Nord land. Oh, yes. Does that make the difference, that it's _Nord_ land?”

“I will not—”

“ _Answer me_ ,” he utters, deep and terrible, and the silver trembles on the table.

Your hand is clenching so hard that your knuckles hurt. Staring back at you, Lleros is as wide-eyed in shock at himself as you are, yet he doesn't back down.

“In your Skyrim,” he says, hushed, feverish in pursuit of this idea, “does my father have the right to own Nord land?”

Unyielding, flat, you grind out all the answer you will surrender to this interrogation: “He is not a Nord.”

For a moment, Lleros just _stares_ , visibly choking. Then rage rises up, cresting like Alduin beneath his skin, great and savage.

“And you have the _temerity_ to ask me to join you!” he roars. “You sit here and try to convince me to fight a war for you while you wouldn't let me own land in the country I was fighting for! You sit here and—”

“ _Enough_!” You surge to your feet. It's the movement as much as your shout that silences Lleros, you can tell from the way he sways backwards. You're angry enough not to care if he's _frightened_. “You question where I sit? Look to your own manners, elf. You are my guest, under my roof, at my table.”

Lleros bares his teeth—or is he panting? “Jarl Stormcloak,” he says at last, in a precisely controlled mockery of manners, “you know that if you ever tire of me, you can throw me out in a heartbeat. Only say the word, and I'll be gone.”

“Get out,” you order. There is just enough control left in you to finish, “Of the room. Not the Palace.”

Lleros stares at you for another moment. It seems—do you imagine it, or do you see the impulse beneath his skin?—that he's about to walk away completely nonetheless. Then the moment passes. Lleros turns on his heel and stalks out of the dining room, head high, mouth hard. He doesn't flinch at having to sweep past Galmar by inches in the doorway.

You sit back down heavily. Distantly, you can hear Galmar cursing and demanding an explanation for the noise, the shuddering threat of Shouting, but it's not your highest concern. Right now the confrontation is beating in your blood like actual battle-fever, and the hot flush is slow to recede. You keep hearing, _feeling_ the Dragonborn scream his outrage.

For the first time since Lleros came here, you are relieved. Elenwen didn't break his will completely. He still has anger. Strength. If he can turn it against you, he can learn again how to turn it against anyone.


	10. Lleros (7)

 You don’t realize how hard you’re shivering until Edris places a hand on your shoulder. His fingers are warm, soft-fleshed around gnarled joints. Still, the touch makes your spine crawl.

“Take a deep breath,” he says. “Out. In…”

Between the scars and the gooseflesh, every inch of your naked skin aches. You can’t stop a shudder whenever Edris or Hlanule touches you, gently pressing and stretching the skin drawn tight by lightning scars. The contact is… it’s _contact_ , and right now you can barely handle being here, lying on a table with your shirt off and your chest exposed, let alone having someone touch you.

You clench your fists and breathe, staring up at the ceiling.

As much as this feels horribly like the past, it’s not. It’s _not_. You came to Edris’ house of your own accord, and more importantly you _stayed_ of your own accord. Edris even said you can leave any time you like—“though I’d rather you didn’t climb off the table while we’re working, you _can_ if you need to. But really, if something’s wrong, just tell us before it gets that bad.” And…

The table. Oh, gods, the table. It’s a good thing you knew before you walked into the room that Edris and Hlanule were expecting you to lie down on a table and let them _work_ on

 _I see I have my work cut out for me. Excellent_.

 _I’m so honoured you made the time to oversee my work today, Ambassador_.

 _I do so enjoy my work_.

let them heal you while you were lying there. But this table is not the shackle-bound thing you dream about: it’s a worn dining board in a small kitchen that smells of rosehips and lye soap and astringent pickling brine. Edris even spread a dark quilt over the table so that you wouldn’t have to lie bare-chested on the sand-scrubbed wood.

Remember that, too: you removed your shirt of your own accord. It’s folded under your head. You can put it back on any time you want.

Divines, none of this helps near enough.

“Well, _muhrjul_ , I’ve seen worse,” Edris says eventually. “You can choose how we start healing. We can start with the lesser scars and ease into it, or we can start with the worst damage and take care of that first.”

The palm-sized patch of thick keloid on your right side hurts at every touch. It keeps you moving cautiously, always slightly hunched to the right side in order to keep from stretching it, and it rebukes you painfully every time you forget it.

“Would you… You’d have to use knives,” you blurt. “For the bad ones.”

“For any of them,” Edris says. You don’t think it’s a coincidence that he’s keeping his palm pressed to your forehead. The pressure is slight, but it’s a place of leverage. It feels as though he’s pressing stability straight through your skull and into the floor below. It’s an unfamiliar restraint, a gentle one, and it paradoxically makes some of the tension bleed out of your shivering-stiff limbs.

“Do the worst,” you choke out before you can think better of it. “Just do it.”

_go ahead, do it. do it, fucking do it! fuck you. i’m not afraid of you!_

_Your bravery is far less noble than you think. Ah, well. We’ll see how long it takes you to piss yourself this time_.

Hlanule takes her pipe out of her mouth and says something. You hear her tapping the bowl empty in a clay dish, setting aside the pipe in preparation.

“She’s going to cast a spell of calm on you,” Edris says. “Yes?”

 _NO_.

“Azura,” you whisper. “Yes.”

“Shh,” Hlanule murmurs, and places her wrinkled hand gently over your eyes. Fists clenched at your sides, you squeeze your eyes shut, blocking out the last glints of light.

_Azura—Stendarr—give mercy, please give mercy, please don’t make me see that place, don’t let me make a fool of myself, please don’t…_

Green light pulses through your eyelids, bright as Masser hanging hugely pregnant over the teeth of the Druadach Mountains at harvest time.

Stress drains out of your body from your jaw to your toes, leaving every muscle slack. You let out a long, dreamy sigh of relief. There was no reason to fear after all. These are your healers.

“Drals?”

Somewhere nearby, Hlanule unrolls a canvas wrapper of tools: knives and picks and pinchers. You recognize the muffled clink of metal. “Mmmm. Yeah?”

“Good. Shh. You may feel a slight pain now…”

“I’ve felt worse,” you reassure him.

For a moment, Edris’ palm presses harder on your forehead. “No doubt,” he mutters. “Now—”

You twist abruptly, jolted by the sting on your right flank. Hlanule’s hand joins Edris’ in grasping your thigh to keep you still.

“Sorry! Sorry, sorry. Did I wreck it?”

“No need to worry,” Edris says. “No, don’t move, Drals.”

You stop trying to crane your neck to look at what Hlanule is doing to your side. It’s odd, though. The sting of pain has gone as quickly as it came. All that lingers is the sensation that repeats in your mind like some physical echo: the weird, painless sensation of your flesh splitting open, layers of skin and fat pulled apart by surface tension. _Odd_. From what you can hear, Hlanule is shuffling her tools, not cutting you anymore.

“ _Mugag ist vidin_?”

“Does that hurt?”

“Mm, no.”

Edris smooths his palm over your forehead. You sigh.

“Not from around here, are you, Drals.”

“No. Winterhold. Or the Reach. Both.”

“Do you like where you live?”

The thought makes your brows lower without conscious intent. _Ulfric_ doesn’t like it much. He doesn’t matter, though. He's a stupid irritant that comes with a soft bed. You can put up with that. “It’s perfect.”

“Think about the most beautiful season there.”

Hlanule pulls something on your side. Your skin? Strange, feeling it tug without actually feeling it being pinched or held.

“Drals.”

“Are you going to read my mind?”

Edris chuckles, which makes you smile. “No, _murhjul_. Just lie still and think about that. _Stynd moufal diras_ , Hlanule.”

His hands leave your face. Eyes closed, you listen to him limp into his chair farther down the table, across from Hlanule. He joins her in prodding at the thick patch of numbness on your side. Obediently, you lie still even though the sensation is so odd that you want to reach down and explore it with your own fingers.

Their voices murmuring over you in Dunmeris are too rough and age-cracked to be familiar, but the pitches and the cadence of the language are near enough to inspire memory. You could be lying on your back in the loft, listening to your parents converse in the kitchen below. It would be… spring, since Edris told you to choose the most beautiful time. Everything outside would be green, fresh, flush with life; even the rocky hills would be so soaked that the air would smell of minerals. The rivers would be gushing icy white froth, but the village was high enough, the gorges deep enough, and the people goat-footed enough that the churning deluge rarely claimed any lives. Clean, wet earth. Shorn fleeces rolled into thick white and black bundles, ready for endless hours of washing and carding that you’d always done willingly, in your youth, for the extra coin and good will it garnered. Tender spring herbs. Pine needle tea. Rock warbler eggs gathered from nests in the juniper, the albumen and yolk drained from tiny holes carefully chipped in the big ends of the shells so that mother could keep the best and brightest shells on the mantle, arrayed like a treasure trove of rich green marble carved into the frailest figures possible. Fire in the hearth.

It’s the best sleep you’ve had in a long time. You even dream well.

 

* * *

 

The New Gnisis Cornerclub, Revyn tells you, is a high-class establishment—or at least as close to high class as a Dunmer can get in the Grey Quarter. Ambarys Rendar has managed to cultivate a good clientele. They're long practiced at holding both their drink and their misery, so there aren't likely to be any violent outbursts on account of either. You were in here once before, on your first visit to Windhelm, but you stayed only for a brief drink and spoke to nobody. The place sounds so different in Revyn’s words.

Your skin is sensitive everywhere, not just where Hlanule and Edris left a palm-sized patch of tender new skin on your side. The keloid is gone as if it never was, leaving a hole in the web of lightning. When Revyn puts his hand on your lower back briefly to guide you through the Cornerclub’s door, the unexpected contact makes you tingle all over.

“New friend, Revyn?” calls a gangly woman from across the room before you’ve even finished making your way to the bar. Her grin is too knowing: right for half a year ago, but wrong now.

“He’s not local,” Revyn calls back, smiling. Thirty seconds in this bar have eased away all the discomfort that has sat between his shoulder blades since you arrived at his store this evening. Considering that the last night he took you out for a drink ended in a bloody brawl, you suppose you can’t blame him for that. At least he’s still willing to accompany you tonight. It’ll be easier with somebody who knows the crowd around here.

“Evening, Revyn. Who’s this?”

“Drals Vedran,” you greet the bartender.

This must be Ambarys… the Dunmer who smuggled in Thalmor wanted posters so that everyone could exclaim over them. His scrutiny makes your hair lift. In reality, though, he gives you a brief and pleasant glance before he nods.

“I’m sorry for whatever misfortune brought you here, friend. What can I get you?”

You order the same thing as Revyn and pay before he can, passing over a handful of coins. Almost half have been clipped to some degree. Ambarys scowls at the handful, now much less pleased by you, and tests the sole gold septim with his teeth. He accepts the rest, which have already been scratched by previous merchants to show solid silver glinting in their centers.

“I can pay,” Revyn murmurs, as Ambarys fetches bottles.

“You’ve done so much for me already.” Indeed, half of your purse has been mixed into Revyn’s till so that he can re-distribute the cut coins more evenly and you have some respectably whole coin.

The flin Revyn ordered turns out to come in small ceramic bottles and smells like an alchemical experiment. Warned by the smell, you sip cautiously and manage to avoid coughing at the burn.

“So,” you say, after a few more nervous sips. “Is there anyone here who can help, do you think?”

“Give me a moment to drink,” Revyn protests. “We’re early. Most folk don’t get done work until sundown at least. The Nords seem to think that a day of work means _every_ hour of the day.”

“They’re short days,” you remind him, because dawn to dusk work is normal in all parts of Skyrim. For all that your recent College education was relatively lax, with nowhere to travel and few demands for labour, you remember years of farm work and bounty hunting before that. When you were adventuring, there were some days that you started travelling even before it was light out because you couldn’t stand another hour of shivering in a cold bedroll.

Revyn rolls his eyes. “I’ll spread the word around in a bit. Sit and relax.”

That’s easy enough for Revyn, you suppose. He’s well known and evidently well liked, if the number of people who chatter at him as the cornerclub fills is anything to judge by. Most of them comment on your presence as well, though none seem at all surprised to find a stranger by Revyn’s side. Three months ago, that level of presumption about whose bed you were sharing would have made you flushed with fury and humiliation. Now it’s the scrutiny, the constant interruptions, the fact that you have to sit at the bar with your back exposed to the room. You compromise by sitting sideways on the stool, and tolerate it when Revyn matches you and hooks a casual ankle around yours as he converses with friends. At least your quiet doesn’t make things awkward for them.

Eventually, when the cornerclub’s crowd has pressed up to the second floor and the air has become hot with sour sweat and the more pleasant scent of pipe smoke, Revyn crooks a finger and snags a tall man out of the crowd with nothing but the gesture. He’s carrying a tray of drinks, though, which suggests that he’s supposed to come when bidden, not that Revyn has _remarkable_ power here.

“Malthyr. Listen, I’m looking for someone to help out a friend of mine. Drals—Malthyr. Heard of anyone looking for work?”

“Everyone,” Malthyr laughs. “Depends what kind, though.”

“Sell-swording,” you reply to his expectant look. “I need somebody to escort me up to Winterhold. Someone who can handle any threats on the way.”

Malthyr kisses his teeth. “Much as I hate to say this, you might be better off looking for a Nord to take you. Pair of Dunmer on the road alone… not a good look right now.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

He looks incredulous. “Stormcloak patrols everywhere. They’re distributing winter supplies, I think, and they’re biting like nervous cats at anyone who looks at them wrong. Or who looks wrong. Some of Idesa’s cousins out at Fallow Hill wrote and said a patrol nearly beheaded them for getting caught on a deer track. The blues thought it looked like they were sneaking around instead of taking a shortcut to the river.”

Shocked, you stare. You’ve had your share of run-ins with Imperial patrols, and once with a Thalmor Justiciar on the road to Solitude; you’ve even accidentally stumbled into a hidden Stormcloak war camp in the Rift. You managed to talk your way clear of trouble in all those cases, though you did have to sell some tomb-scavenged weapons to the Stormcloak quartermaster at painfully cheap prices in order to ease the suspicion about your intent. Even then, you don’t think you were ever anywhere close to losing your _head_.

“And you think there’s a Nord for hire left in the city?” Revyn asks archly.

“Well, I’ll ask around,” Malthyr says. “I’m _coming_ , Sendry! Can I get you fresh drinks?”

“Mm, yes.” Revyn pays for both before you get a hand on your purse. Grateful despite your embarrassment, you accept the favour with a ducked smile.

“Well, if they’re all coming after us now, we ought to go upstairs,” Revyn groans. “We’ll never get a moment of privacy down here.” He clucks in disapproval as if he hadn’t been, to all appearances, the world’s most cheerful and popular gossip for the last hour.

Whether it’s the flin or the sense that your situation is finally improving, you laugh. Eyes crinkled with how pleased he is at himself, Revyn makes a mock-courteous offer for your arm, and you let him guide you through the crowd and upstairs with a hand on your elbow.

On the second floor, away from the social hub of the bar, the furniture is shabbier, and the crowd thinner and quieter. People do indeed seem to be minding their own business up here, arrayed in small, discrete groups in the pools of light cast by dim red magelights or candles flickering in wire-hung wine bottles. None of the gamblers do more than glance up briefly from their silent, familiar games of dice, and the elders smoking or whittling at their individual tables seem unaware of any intrusion at all.

“You’ll have to do most of the talking,” Revyn murmurs, as you’re situating yourselves at a corner table propped on shipping crates. “I can do introductions, of course, but don’t expect me to explain the whole trip to them.”

“When was the last time you travelled even a day from Windhelm?” you ask, amused. Off-handedly planning travel routes and estimating supplies for the journey is second nature to you, while you doubt that Revyn could put together an expedition manifest if he had a guide and a week to do it.

Revyn sighs. “Too long.”

Movement catches your eye: a boy poking his half-shaven head up the staircase, peering about the room. His face is round and soft, childlike even to your eye unaccustomed to elfish appearances. You have just time to think, _No, surely_ —before he spots Revyn and heads directly across the room to your table with a determination that leaves no doubt.

“Serjo?” he asks breathlessly, hands in nervous fists, and yes, he does have a battered sheath on his belt, though you’d scarcely call it a sword. “I heard you had work.”

“Korjarr?” Revyn says. “No. No, go home.”

What a bafflingly Nordic name that is, fit to match the seax on his belt. Before he can voice the outrage visible on his face, another set of boots thump up the stairs. They belong to a much taller woman who similarly homes in on your table. She may have no weapon, but you know a sell-sword when you see one: she has scarred hands, iron-capped boots, and a few mismatched pieces of leather on even over her casual clothing.

“Oh, Tandis, sit,” Revyn says, and then calls, “Well, come on and sit down,” to the pair of rangy, same-faced men slinking onto the landing.

Growing astonishment makes you stare at the group rapidly assembling out of nowhere. You’ve scarcely had time to sit down and Malthyr can’t have spread your message to more than a few tables, but the work-hungry Dunmer are coming _quickly_.

“Ekilamer,” Tandis drawls to Korjarr, stepping around him to claim the seat beside Revyn. “Ser. Pleased to meet you.”

You nod at her despite your distraction with nudging out the chair beside you. “Have a seat,” you say to Korjarr, who is still standing in front of the table, flushed and paralyzed. He might be young enough that you’d never for a moment consider hiring him as a companion, but you can’t leave the boy there in his mortified anger.

The piteously grateful look Korjarr gives you as he takes the seat says enough about his familiarity with being dismissed out of hand. That gives you a twinge of irritation at Revyn, grateful as you are to him, and at Tandis, who wrinkles her nose.

So: in short order, there are Korjarr and Tandis, Fadeibon and Moviion Hlaalu, Suvvyni Dalonith, Virele, Dreabi, Arvsthyne, Llodrane—too many to keep track of. As Revyn makes introductions, you nod and murmur greetings to all of them, trying not to be taken aback in the face of these hungry-eyed strangers.

You’re nearly sure that they can’t all be sell-swords: Dreabi has ink-stained hands, Llodrane looks like any ordinary man off the street, and Korjarr of course is too young. Nonetheless, here they are to hear you speak. And to them this is just a job, but to you all these people out-sprawling the table on stolen chairs and crates are here to _help_. You never imagined such a thing. At this rate, soon— _soon_ you will be well again.

 

* * *

 

They laugh in your face.

No, not about the job itself. They listen intently as you explain what you require: an escort to the capital of Winterhold. You intend to travel north along Skyrim’s eastern coastline rather than following the main road, because the safer and more heavily travelled road requires a long detour west to Lake Yorgrim before cutting back north-east through the Karmanthor Mountains. The off-road route around the coast and over the glacier, while home to many more predators, is a shorter and relatively easy way to walk. Though Virele frets his nails nervously at the prospect, the Hlaalu twins nod along at your logic.

The weather isn’t a concern, you assure them: even in the shortening days of Frostfall, the coast holds no risk of storm that you aren’t already familiar with from seven years of living at the College. You know how to handle the north sea’s screaming and sleet, the glacier's crevasses and moulins. You are an experienced traveller, an excellent hunter and forager, and a healer besides. They do not need to worry about nursing you to your destination like some cosseted noble.

All you need from them is protection on this journey. “I’ve got a bow of my own,” you explain, abruptly tight-throated from the exposure of admitting your shortcomings, “but I’m… injured right now. I’d rather not rely on my own hands.”

“You shouldn’t need to draw your bow at all,” Tandis says. “I’m familiar with the beasts of the glacier. I can handle any of them on my own.”

“That sort of arrogance can prove so fatal in average fighters,” Moviion drawls.

“Just because you—”

“Please,” you interrupt, cutting into the rapid swell of quarrelling voices. They all quiet with gratifying immediacy.

“What are you going to Winterhold for?” asks Korjarr. It’s the first time he’s spoken. A glance at him reveals that he seems far more fascinated by your intent than focused on the job. “Are you a student at the College?”

“That’s none of our business,” Moviion says, irritating in his performance of sanctimonious professionalism. You’re almost certain that it was more to make Korjarr wilt than to impress you as a patron.

“I have business there,” you interrupt again, answering out of sheer spite at Moviion’s chiding even though you don't want to risk any of them actually finding out that you are, or were, a College student. After all, there is a Thalmor agent permanently stationed there. But you cannot fathom what issue these people all take with Korjarr, and it galls you horribly.

The business, of course, is money. On the steps of the temple of Azura, you had remembered two things: first, that Revyn Sadri had once offered you payment that he might be willing to give, and second, that when you had ventured up to the College to tuck Azura’s purified Star in your trunk for safe-keeping, you had also sold Enthir a heap of jewelry and enchanted items that ordinary merchants along your way hadn’t been willing or able to offer a fair price for. Enthir hadn’t been willing to give you the full cost of those goods up front, either—especially since, as he had said, “these sales are so dependent on finding the right buyer. I’ve no guarantee that I’ll make any money back on these trinkets if I just buy them from you now, have I?” So you’d taken half the agreed-upon price up front, left the entire stash, and signed a contract that guaranteed you either the rest of the sales or the return of the relevant unsold items. You’d thought, then, that you’d get the money when you had dealt with Alduin and returned to the College to resume classes.

Well. Alduin may not be dead yet, but it’s turning out for the best that Enthir had acted like such a slippery fetcher.

“On the matter of price,” says Moviion, as if he’d read your mind. “My brother and I _do_ charge a little more than most, given that we take most jobs together, but—”

“But really, it’s not necessary to hire two _s’wits_ when one capable companion will do,” Tandis finishes. “I usually charge five hundred septims, but I’m willing to negotiate, ser.”

“As I was _saying_ ,” Moviion says, glaring poisonously. You’re willing to bet that his knives are poisoned, too. “If you’d only like one of us to accompany you, the price is less. Four hundred.”

“I’ll do it for two,” Korjarr blurts. “Hundred. Two hundred.”

Virele bursts into laughter. “And you’ll get what you pay for. I ask five hundred, but I only need four up front. You needn’t pay me the rest unless you’re satisfied at the end… and you will be, I promise.”

“ _Stop_ ,” you order, holding a hand up. You’re not accustomed to having so many people compete for your favour. As hard as the more professional of them try to hide it, there’s a sense of desperation underlying everyone’s bargaining. It’s in the narrowed eyes, the vicious undercutting, and their willingness to sell themselves down with so little prompting. How few and far between are profitable jobs for them?

“I’m willing to pay four hundred,” you say, and a shiver of hungry anticipation goes through the little crowd. “With a possible bonus. But you get paid after the job.”

And _then_ they laugh.

“ _No_ ,” Suvvyni gasps, over Tandis’ enormous crowing cackle and the Hlaalu twins’ ugly jeering. “Revyn, really. This is your friend? _This_ sort?”

Your face is hot with mortification. Even though you know it wouldn’t help, you want to punch somebody, anybody, just to make them _stop_. “Excuse me, I—”

“He’ll pay us _after_ the job,” Moviion sneers to Fadeibon. All appearances of professional courtesy have vanished. “Brother, do you remember the last man who said that to us?”

“A Nord,” Fadeibon says.

“They always say that,” Moviion hisses, turning his stare back on you. “And do they ever pay?”

“He’s not a Nord,” Revyn protests, at the same time you snap, “I’m not a _cheat_. I just don’t have—”

Mistake. It’s a mistake and you know it the moment the words leave your mouth. Cutting the sentence off halfway isn’t enough to save you.

“Ancestors save me from this waste of time,” Tandis snarls, and shoves out of her seat without further ado. She has to push the table and force her way past the other Dunmer sitting around it in order to get out of her place beside Revyn, but within moments she has stomped off toward the stairs.

“I can pay you!” you shout, slamming a hand onto the table. “I have money. More than enough money. It’s just, it’s in Winterhold—” Virele gives a bark of laughter and Moviion rolls his eyes— “—so all I have to do is get it. I can give it to you as soon as we get there, even.”

“Right,” Arvsthyne says, throwing you a scornful look. “Revyn, is this some sort of joke?”

“I trust him,” Revyn says, chin high. “And you can trust him. Stop laughing, you ungrateful wretches! If he says you’ll get paid, then you’ll get paid!”

“Are you going to pay _for_ him?” Suvvyni demands.

Revyn hesitates. (Four hundred septims—that’s nearly as much as you asked him for. And he said he couldn’t afford to spare that amount of coin.)

Suvvyni shakes her head. “I didn’t think so.”

“You’ll get paid!” you insist, struggling to control the urge to roar. You didn’t even ask Revyn to cover the cost of a mercenary up front because he has given you so much already, and because you were so sure that these people wouldn’t be like Tethyls—that they would do as Edris did. As _you_ have done.

“That’s what they all say,” Virele retorts, crushing the last of your assumptions. “And do we ever? I don’t even scrub shit from a chamber pot without getting my four coppers first. Forget five hundred gold from this stranger. He even talks like he’s got a mouthful of snow.”

“Get out, then,” you utter, interrupting Revyn’s heated response. You are shaking all over, blind to thought or reason beyond the tenuous thread of control that keeps your fists in check. “Fine. Fuck you. _Get out_.”

Virele gives another contemptuous laugh. When he gets to his feet, he does it slowly, sauntering, to rub in that he’s not leaving by your orders but his own disdainful rejection.

“Fuck you!”

The entire room is staring at you. Here in this place where everyone knows well enough to mind their own quietly miserable business, they are witnessing your humiliation. Muttering and scoffing bitterly under their breaths, your crowd of prospective sell-swords get up and head to the stairs. Moviion throws you one last savage glare, thumbing the hilt of his stiletto. You glower back. Talos, you hope he tries it. Let him give you one reason, the arrogant cur—

Korjarr is the last to go. He hesitates in his seat beside you, looking anxious and torn, but finally hurries after the others before the last of them can disappear and leave him visibly aligned with you. The prospect of winning work and gold doesn’t outweigh the hazard of becoming associated with you, of the job’s danger, and of the gold being false after all.

“Curst Et’Ada,” Revyn whispers, hiding his face in his hands. His ears are purple with embarrassment. “Oh, gods. Oh gods.”

Agonizingly aware of every speculative eye still on you, you lower your head into your hands as well, hoping that every single one of them will take it for the sign of mortification that it is and accept that you are chastened enough already. The rage has gone, leaving you like a blight-struck leaf: a small, tight-curled husk. You’d crawl beneath the table if it weren’t for the knowledge that eventually you would have to emerge, and it would be even worse then.

Tiptoeing in the hush, Malthyr makes his way over with your drinks. Having obviously heard some part of the story downstairs already, he’s too embarrassed to meet your eyes as he sets the bottles of flin down.

You drink in hard, fast gulps that burn horribly, head tipped back to keep the burn from turning into tears.

 

* * *

 

And:

That night, you dream.

“Wake up!” the guard is shouting, pounding the door so hard it rattles in its frame. “Wake _up_!”

 

* * *

 

And:

“Go see Nurelion at the White Phial,” Wuunferth says as he passes you in the hall, with no preamble and no pretence. “He might have something that can keep you asleep quietly.”

 

* * *

 

And:

“Fuck off if all you came to do is mock me!” you roar. “It’s your loss!”

 

* * *

 

And:

The sleeping poison is twenty-two silver septims out of your ever-shrinking purse. It turns out that one sip will drag you under hard and fast, smothering out your usual nighttime tossing like an icy, sodden blanket. But you still come up from the darkness of dreams screaming—worse, Shouting.

You pile the remains of the bedside table in a mortified heap by the door. There’s nothing left of it but beautifully varnished kindling.

You consider your knife.

No. That would make an even bigger mess.

 

* * *

 

And the New Gnisis Cornerclub is so much quieter without Revyn there to accompany you. After four nights of embarrassment and shouting and one argument that escalated into a fist fight, he told you that he had to work on his accounts tonight. He wouldn’t meet your eyes. You don’t blame him.

Tonight you have a seat at the bar: not out in the middle, where the crowd is thickest and brightest, but in the corner where the bar meets the wall and the weak floor joists overhead are shored up with a post of unstripped pine, forming a cramped and isolated niche. This seat may be more exposed, but it’s faster to get drinks… and that’s pretty much all you’ve been here to do these last few days. People have stopped coming to laugh, stopped letting you even _try_ to explain, and gone on to ignoring you as another bit of miserable background. Every so often, Ambarys slides you a new mug of watered beer without being asked and takes another copper penny off the stack in front of you. Even he doesn’t speak.

A woman leans on the bar next to you and gestures down the way at Ambarys. “Heard you’re looking to hire.”

It takes you a moment to realize she’s talking to you. You eye her sullenly. “Don’t make me punch an elder, missus.”

She cackles, revealing teeth more ebony than ivory and tobacco-stained where they’re still the originals. “I saw that last night. You couldn’t punch me unless I let you. What a rude answer to a polite question.”

You stare at her for a full ten seconds, weighing whether or not this is likely to be some new mockery. The dull contemplation ends when you realize you don’t care one way or the other. “I’m hiring. Money after the job.”

“Mmm. Nobody much likes to hear that.” Ambarys appears with her drink—a tall, slender bottle that you’ve learned to recognize as sujamma—but doesn’t attempt his customary chat. Nor has he broken the wax seal on the bottle. “Still, the right person might consider that offer. With the right collateral.”

You eye her knobbled wrist joints and the wooden brace strapped to her left knee, creaking with every shift. “Is that person you?”

“I know a man.”

Ah, yes. Some nameless fiction she can dangle to draw out the conversation. Good thing you didn’t bother getting your hopes up. “Sells his sword, does he?” you ask, tracing circles in the condensation on the bar. It seeps into the unvarnished cracks.

“Daggers, actually.” She cracks the seal on her sujamma with a curl of her long thumb nail. “Arrows. Poisons. Small, quiet things.”

That is… not what you were expecting. You consider it for a long moment, though, broken out of your obdurate drunkenness by this novelty of the woman’s offer. “I don’t think that’s quite what I need,” you say at last, honestly. “I don’t think an assassin can fix my problems.”

She gives you a sly smile. “Are you sure? Mephala knows, a knife in the dark can ease the way to so many things.”

At first, you think— _fleetingly_ —of Tethyls. But that thought is gone in a moment. You’re angry and some days you think you could rip the world apart, but you’re not about to take that out on an innocent woman. Besides, what would it help to murder your only hope of fixing your hand?

Then, slowly, you start to grin. As the old woman looks on and smiles at your reaction, your grinning turns into a helpless, hiccupping giggle.

Imagine: the Dragonborn hiring an assassin to slay the World-Eater.

“I don’t think I could afford it,” you wheeze, hunching over the bar for support. “I don’t think a _king_ could afford it. Cost more than an Emperor’s ransom. _Divines_.”

“Pity,” the woman sighs. “Keep the thought, sera. You never know.”

When Ambarys slips over, she’s long gone but you’re still snickering into your beer. The bored expression he saves for you these days has been replaced with the usual keen pleasantry he uses on most everyone else. “Was that a pleasant chat, Drals?”

He’s not been friendly these last few days, especially since you were in—possibly started—a fight last night. You seem to recall him smiling some friendly-sounding savagery at Revyn last night, when you were hanging on Revyn’s shoulder and too busy swallowing mouthfuls of your own blood to snarl back. “What do you care? Is it your business?”

Ambarys smiles with all his white, straight teeth. He’s so horridly handsome. “I make most everything my business, especially if it goes on in here. And _especially_ when I see somebody laughing over drinks with an assassin.”

That startles you enough to make you sit up, blinking. “Is she?”

“Well. Once upon a time, anyway. So they say. Her nephew is rather the strapping thing these days, though. Not so many people around these parts learn to handle knives like he has.” He watches you closely for a reaction.

You haven’t got anything to react to, though, besides the realization that you really were solicited for a murder contract. Ambarys already knows about that. No doubt he knows her name, too, which is more than you do.

You shrug, making a blatant show of uncaring just to frustrate Ambarys. “Well. That’s interesting.”

His smile grows a fraction wider. “Indeed.”

Summoned by voices at the busy end of the bar, he leaves you to your beer again. You sense, however, that you’ll be watched all night. Let him. You hope the sight of you sipping your watery beer is as mind-numbing for Ambarys as it is for you.

But the quiet doesn’t last. Out of the corner of your eye, you glimpse somebody else slipping into the place that the old woman just left. At first you think that it’s her again, coming back to sell you harder on this nephew’s knives. And then—

“I hear you’ve been seeking assistance,” says Elenwen.

 


	11. Lleros (8)

 

“You may not speak without permission,” says the Ambassador, standing over you. Somehow. Though you are seated on a stool, she always stands over you. You always have to look up at her: gold skin, gold eyes, gold ( _red_ ) gold hair.

Instinctively, your hand flails your tankard at Elenwen. It's a terrible throw from muscles turned to jelly with fear, and the tankard does nothing but clatter down the bar in a spray of foam. Beer floods onto the floor and Elenwen's robes, making her step backward with a cry of disgust. You heave yourself violently away from the bar, only to smash into the pine post behind you. The stool wobbles and pitches you off. Fall—grab the post—stumble—

You want to scream but your fear says _no_ , no, don't speak. Azura, don't speak, don't open your mouth or she'll—they'll—she'll hurt you, she'll cast lightning to crack your Voice, she's already muzzled you and you _can't_ speak, mustn't speak, don't speak, don't—

Elenwen is staring at you. There are people, people everywhere—Dunmer—because this is a bar. You're in a corner. Trapped. The door, where is the door?

“What in Oblivion?” says Elenwen, and you bolt.

The startled crowd parts just fast enough that you hit the door at full speed—hear something crack—tear the latch back and spill out into the night headlong. Forgetting that the New Gnisis Cornerclub was built before the street was cut lower, you stagger right past the people lounging outside the door and into thin air.

Falling—vertigo—and then you hit the street hard. Pain blanks out your mind. You taste blood. You can't see—or can't process what your eyes are taking in—but you can hear voices hooting with laughter overhead. Somebody on the porch shouts, “Don't puke in the street, _s'wit_ , people walk there!”

Fumbling with pain and disorientation, you stagger in the direction your head is pointing. It's downhill, down stairs cut into the stone. Both of your knees are still in agony from hitting the street but you force yourself to stumble along as fast as possible, wheezing loudly, because she's here. They're here. Behind you. They've found you.

Run. Run. Run. Hide.

Walls—streets—turn the corner. Confuse pursuit. Turn left. Right. Find the smallest alley. Smaller. Darker. Sludge underfoot—gravel—then tearing pain that makes you flail backwards, crying out. It clings to you, prickling. What is...? Roses. An alley full of rosebushes, waist high, needle-thorned. A dead end anyway. Back—turn—run.

Run. Slip. Run. Hide.

You can't breathe. There's a tearing pain in your chest: just your lungs burning, a stitch tearing between your ribs, but it could also be lightning crackling across your skin, sting and pop, not enough to kill you ( _never_ ) but enough to keep you from concentrating on a Word. Painful enough to make you twist and whine between words as you talk, _talk_ , keep talking long enough to satisfy her while she's permitted the bit out of your mouth so that maybe this time is the last time, maybe they'll be done. It hurts. It hurts so much.

Ice cracks and water splashes around your ankles. You're stumbling through puddles: ankle-deep, then deeper. It seeps into your boots. You have just enough presence of mind to lurch back to the side of the street, where the your boots still suck in the mud washed down from the city above but at least the water isn't so deep. In the moonlight, you can see that the street is awash almost from side to side. There are wooden arches spanning the street overhead: braces for the buildings with their foundations cut deeper than initially intended, covered with just enough planking to make rickety footbridges. It looks different enough by night that you didn't recognize it at first, but this is the Gutter.

Panting raggedly, you force yourself to slow down and pick your way through the sea of mud. Occasionally you find a stretch of planking laid over shipping crates that the locals have set down for their own use. You can't hear anybody behind you, at least. No shrieks from Dunmer alarmed by pursuing Thalmor. There are cats on the rooftops but nobody on the street.

A repeated hollow thumping makes you shrink against the side of a house and freeze there until you recognize the sound of trash afloat in the water being knocked against a crate. You wipe your forehead and keep trudging.

Where to now? Elenwen may not be right behind you, but she's still _there_ , out in the darkness. You're shivering uncontrollably from the knowledge. The only way out of the Gutter from here is up. If you keep walking, you'll get to the docks gate at the south edge of the Grey Quarter; a little farther and you'll hit the city's main gate.

But you force yourself to think rationally. You can't stagger out into the night without so much as a weapon. That's even less than you had when you escaped the Embassy. Besides, this isn't Solitude, it's _Windhelm_. Not a single guard here will hand you back to the Thalmor.

You need to get help. You need to find Stormcloak.

As you start picking your way up the stepped street, a gaggle of youths dashes out of the dark and clatters recklessly across a bridge overhead, their way lit by a bobbing magelight that barely keeps pace with the leader. You startle violently and throw yourself into the shelter of a doorway, but by then they're already gone, footsteps fading away into the night. You're left shaking and gasping in the doorway for several minutes, clutching the dagger on your belt.

If they'd been Thalmor you'd be writhing on the ground right now, gagged and halfway bound.

At last you get yourself together and continue walking. _Now is_ not _the time to be cowering in the corner, Lleros_.

Despite the uphill walk, your sodden feet start to get cold quickly. _Wet feet freeze_ , your mother always warns. You have seen enough bloated black toes on Nords who thought they were immune to the cold that, just for the moment, this mundane danger nearly takes precedence over the threat of Thalmor pursuit. When the sign for Sadri's Used Wares comes into view at the top of the street, you head for it with scarcely a moment of hesitation. You've got to get off the street. It's not just exposed, it's _cold_.

(Oh, Azura, if you bring Elenwen down on Revyn— but you won't. You'll just stay long enough to get dry socks. You won't let yourself climb into his bed and stop existing there.)

Your shove rattles the door in its frame. It's barred from the inside. Of course: it's closed. But he'll be inside doing inventory and cleaning, you know he will. If there's one thing you know about Revyn Sadri, it's that he clings to his routines of workingdrinkingcleaning like they are the only thing standing between him and bankruptcy. He'll be there.

“Revyn!” You pound on the door. “Revyn, please. Please open up. Revyn—”

Despite your self-assurances, you gasp with relief when the door pops open to reveal Revyn's baffled face in the crack. He's wearing a robe over sleeping clothes and his hair has been raked high with frustration. “Ller— _Drals_. You're here. Why are you _here_?”

“Please let me in,” you whisper.

“Well—yes, of course.” You dart through into the darkened shop as soon as the door's open wide enough, even though you have to shoulder rudely past Revyn to get in. You'll apologize as soon as your back isn't to the street. “Wait a moment. Wait, listen.”

“ _Well_ ,” says the woman standing at the shop's counter, glowing gold in the light of the single candle.

Distantly, you feel your knees buckle. You slip down to the floor. It's too much.

Elenwen beat you here. You're already exhausted and shivering with cold; you can't fight her like this. Not that you ever could fight, you pathetic fool. And now—now Revyn is dead, just like Delphine.

“Drals,” Revyn says, grabbing your shoulder from behind. “Come on, don't...”

“No,” you whisper—you think you whisper. Your face is numb. You can barely hear. “No. No.”

“What's wrong with him?” Elenwen asks.

“You think I know?” Revyn demands, his voice much higher than usual. “ _Drals_.”

Run. (You can't move.) Hide. (You can't feel your legs.)

Elenwen steps forward, looking down at your with a strange expression of wariness and confusion. Her face is... wrong. Her hair is too dark. But she's standing there, looking down on you, and...

Kill her. _Shout_. Burn her, break her, _kill_ her while you can, just—

But you can't. You can't move. Is it that you're frozen, or that you're too _afraid_? Because you _are_ afraid. You don't want to hurt any more. You don't want to go back to the dungeon. You can't—you can't—

“Stop it,” Revyn hisses, and Elenwen freezes. As if from far away, you can hear yourself making animal noise, a wordless whine of protest. It keeps breaking as you sob for breath.

“Go... just go into the other room.”

“Is he—?”

“He'll be _fine_ ,” says Revyn loudly.

Elenwen is frowning at you. Elenwen turns and ducks under the curtain into Revyn's bedroom. Elenwen is gone.

Revyn's hand touches your face. He's whispering. “Lleros?”

Your jaw hurts. You are... you're clenching your teeth. Your teeth feel fused together. Everything is so far away. With a monumental effort, you manage to shake your head, but it's so hard to control your muscles; your head jerks and lists to the side. Revyn has to grab you and hold you upright.

Don't speak. She'll hurt you. (But Revyn—)

“Run,” you rasp. “Revyn. Run. I'll. I'll stay. Help—”

“No, no. It's okay. Listen to me.”

“Get _help_ ,” you insist, voice choked to nearly nothing. If she hears, you're both dead.

“Blessed Lord Azura, help me,” Revyn whispers. “Give the wisdom to find the shadows in the day, and the lights of the night. Allow me to find the path through the trials that fate has set for me. Lleros, _shh_. Come on. It's all right.”

You grab clumsily at Revyn's robe as he wraps his arm around you. Your fingers are too numb to hold onto anything. Everything slips past you. You can't—

And you are shaking almost too hard to breathe, wheezing painfully into Revyn's shoulder— and he's saying—

—looking at the rafters—

—a candle—

—cold water on your forehead.

Slowly, sensation runs back into your body, tingling up from your toes and fingertips as if you're thawing out from ice. Every so often, you lift the cup to your lips and drink. The shock of cold water running down inside you reminds you of the shape of your body, makes your numbed core tangible again the way a healing potion painting the inside of a flask makes the glass visible.

You are on the floor, sitting up against a wall. Nearby, Revyn is also sitting with his legs crossed, head bowed and hands steepled over his mouth as he prays in silence. Behind the counter, illuminated by the single candle in the dark shop, the Altmer woman sits on a stool and studies her folded hands, brows furrowed.

Her name is Niranye. Revyn explained this to you probably a hundred times, and eventually it sank in through the numbness and the dark, distancing tunnel. Now that you have control over yourself again, you can see her for who she is... and who she is not. True, they have the same wide mouth, and from the wrong angles Niranye's cheekbones catch deep shadow and turn her angular and vicious. But Niranye's hair is a deep, burnished copper, not Elenwen's bleached-bone blonde. It's easiest to look at her with your eyes unfocused because then you can see that her face is rounder, gentler, not long and sharp, lengthened even more by Elenwen's deep widow's peak and slicked-back hair.

Feeling weak from the ordeal, you reach out and put a hand on Revyn's knee. After a moment, he opens his eyes and looks up at you.

You smile feebly. “I'm fine.”

Rather than replying, Revyn winces and rubs a hand over his face, then pushes it back into his hair. By now, his hair is standing nearly upright. Still, he finally pats you on the back of your hand.

“I hope you're feeling better, then,” Niranye says.

Even though you _know_ better than to panic, your throat still chokes shut on a startled breath. “Much better,” you say, enunciating with brittle care. “Thank you.”

Revyn sniffs and sits straighter, tugging his robe back into order. Dressed as he is for sleep, he looks even more frightened and fragile that he ordinarily might. “Care to explain what that was about?”

Unable to face the accusation, you close your eyes. “I panicked,” is all you can say. It's a poor, weak excuse. It does nothing to encompass the savage explosion of terror, the conviction that you were about to die. Or your shame. And the worst thing is that you know that no matter how you try to explain, neither Revyn or Niranye will understand. How can they?

“I have to say,” Niranye comments, examining her nails, “I'd heard a few people say that you were badly off, but I didn't imagine _that_ response.”

Divines, you want to hit her. It's a mad, wrong urge, just the same as the impulse to beat your skull against the wall after a nightmare. It's an itch for violence and ending, pointless and wrong... but still difficult to deny. “Yes, well. I've never—that's never happened before. I'm... sorry for the trouble.”And then the grovelling makes your temper rise up and you snap, “What does it matter to you, anyway?”

Niranye raises her eyebrows. It takes a force of will not to whimper at even that mild expression of displeasure. “I think it matters very much if I’m to be the one escorting you to Winterhold. I was told that you were _injured_ , not mad.”

Though the insult stings and the skepticism frightens, her other words are important enough to demand more of your attention. “ _You_ want to…” Hesitant to voice the depth of your doubt and dismay, you shut your mouth and make do with staring at her, trying to find any sign of martial ability. Her hands are rough, but only from dry air and dusty stock; there’s metal polish spotting her cuffs, but no doubt only from polishing silver. She’s built as tall and bony as any Altmer, with a softness to her stomach and hips that hints at years spent nibbling bread and wine during long days at her market stall.

“I’m perfectly capable on the road, thank you very much. I’d travel more, but who wants to deal with all the soldiers these days?” Niranye complains. “But as it happens, I have business with an… associate in Winterhold that’s been waiting for months. It’s not pressing, but if I can get paid for making a trip up there that I’d eventually have to make on my own… well, that’s an excellent deal, don’t you agree?”

“An associate?” Revyn interrupts, perking up suddenly. It’s fortunate that he does, because Niranye’s casual query has left you shuddering and cold. “A business partner? This wouldn’t be one of the people who gets you your goods for so cheaply, would it?”

“It’s rather a private business. I—Drals, are you all right?”

“ _Shut up_ ,” you snarl, digging your fingernails into your scalp, pressing the heels of your palms into your eyes as if you can crush your vision of the room back into your head where it belongs, keep it from floating away down the long dark tunnel again. Your head is swimming with echoes of the haughty Aldmeri accent. “Stop, just stop _talking_.”

“I don’t see how we’re going to travel together if I can’t—”

“ _Stop it_!”

Your scream raises a fragile tinkle of rattling ceramic and silver and glass from every shelf and cupboard in the room. Then the only sound is your breath wheezing unsteadily in and out as you mentally chant the words of Azura’s invocation, the one Revyn kept repeating earlier like a mantra as much for his comfort as for yours. Niranye and Revyn are dead silent.

Even once your breathing returns to normal, you cannot raise your head to look Niranye and Revyn in the eye again. What a fucking pathetic _mess_ you are. Useless.

At last, Revyn breaks the silence by laying a tentative hand on your shoulder. Shaken and covering it badly with anger, he demands, “Drals, what is the _matter_?”

“It’s her accent,” you manage, your voice cracking in the middle. “Her face, her…she looks like—I keep seeing… someone else. I can’t help it.”

“Who?” Revyn presses, only for Niranye to interrupt softly, “No.”

You finally manage to look up. At the counter, illuminated and shadowed by the single flickering candle, she looks gaunt and grim.

“He wouldn’t be the first to see a Dominion agent in me just because I’m a goldskin,” she says, her voice hushed and flattened so that there’s almost no trace of Summerset accent in it. “I understand. Though I can’t say I’m pleased.”

“I don’t want to,” you protest. “I don’t think you’re one of them.”

And then you have to pause and think: _is she_? Is it possible that Niranye really is a spy for the Thalmor—or if not that, just a loyalist who might betray you? Can you trust her?

What settles it for you is the knowledge that this is Ulfric Stormcloak’s city. Whatever you may think of him, however horrid a man he may be, one thing he is _not_ is oblivious to potential threats. If Niranye has been allowed to remain and run a business in Windhelm, it means that Stormcloak has never found the slightest reason to doubt her, and not for his lack of trying.

“I don’t think you’re Thalmor,” you finish, quiet but firm. “I’m sorry. I am _trying_.”

“How nice,” Niranye drawls, then covers her mouth as you wince. Drawing a deep breath, you rub the memory and the tension away with a thumb on your brow.

“I don’t think this is going to work,” says Revyn, glancing nervously from you to Niranye.

“I’ll make it work,” you insist quickly, and take another breath to steady yourself. You have to be stable no matter how your wild-animal heart pounds against your ribs. Your instincts are screaming but you must _control_ them. “I’ll manage. Niranye—I’ll manage. Please. Accompany me to Winterhold.”

After a long moment in which she studies you, weighing you and your word and your weaknesses with a critical eye, she finally nods.

You clench your fist and nod back. Barely willing to trust your voice not to betray you and ruin Niranye’s resolve already, you force yourself to ask, “How soon can we leave?”

 

* * *

 

Cautious with every word, Niranye and you pick away at travel plans until the great tower bell distantly tolls midnight, the last chime until dawn. Then Revyn stomps out of his bedroom and throws you both out unceremoniously, immune in his ire to your gratitude and apologies. Niranye seems more amused than anything by this, and slinks off into the darkness smiling like a cat after you’ve promised to meet her in the market tomorrow.

Teeth chattering, you follow the road the rest of the way up out of the Grey Quarter and return to the Palace via Valunstrad rather than circling down through the Gutter again. You don’t know the Grey Quarter well enough by day to take the most direct route through higher, smaller streets, let alone at night. The veil of pink and orange aurora rippling overhead isn’t enough to light your way.

In the dark, flame-spackled courtyard of the Palace, the guards are drowsing near the braziers, still sufficiently fresh-stirred from their warm beds to be muddle-eyed and shivery. The flames make their unmoving figures dance a hundred feet tall on the towering stone walls. It’s not until your sodden boots scrape near that the guard on the nearest door finally jerks her chin up from its prop on the crossbar of her spear.

“Halt!” she orders, overly loud and sleep-slurry. The other guards startle. Then she squints at you with eyes dazzled by the fire. “Oh. Dragonborn.”

It comes out sour and flat. She is not impressed by you, or by your irregular late comings and goings from the Palace. None of the guards are. It was almost better when they didn’t recognize you.

You’ve come to recognize them too, though. This woman is the one whose left leg clacks loudly on the flagstones, a tapered peg of mammoth ivory from the mid-thigh down. The short, bristly, rust-haired man by her side is called Half-Hand, for obvious reasons. The woman across the brazier has complex leather braces wrapped around both her knees, and the girl huddling by the courtyard entrance, pock-faced beneath her helmet, can’t have seen sixteen winters. These are the most elite guardsmen left to stand sentry over Ulfric Stormcloak in the night: the young, the old, and the lamed. They can manage city patrols and petty crime but not hard travel or pitched battle. They have more than enough resentment that you’d be their target even if you _weren’t_ elven, or grey, or in the habit of creeping back into the Palace smelling of beer and sometimes bloodied.

“Good evening, guardswoman,” you murmur. “Pardon.”

Mouth pursed irritably, she thumps on one of the great doors. “Open up in there!”

After a moment, the guards inside haul up the crossbeam and let the door groan open a crack. You slip through hastily. Doing your level best to keep your chin high and your mouth from apologizing over and over, you hurry down the darkened hall and slip upstairs. Even in the upper corridors, you’re forced to duck and nod past the accusing stares of the handful of guards eternally on patrol. Only in the darkness of your room, with the door securely shut and barred behind you, can you finally shudder and cover your face with embarrassment.

Paint smears on your fingers. It’s a reminder to scrub your face roughly before you shed your robes and crawl into bed. You dare not ruin Stormcloak’s linens with paint. You are a terrible enough guest already.

Despite your exhaustion, you lie on your back and stare up at the black-shrouded ceiling for several minutes before you finally reach for the bottle of sleeping poison under your pillow.

 _Please, Azura. Don’t let me dream tonight. Let me walk in brilliance like Moonshadow, not the confusion of my past and present in Quagmire_.

This prayer she does not answer.

 

* * *

 

The next day, you are shocked that Niranye has not changed her mind about accompanying you to Winterhold. When you wake up, the previous adrenaline-stained night seems like a dream, the sort you might confuse for reality out of heartsick hope. You half expect Niranye to stare at you blankly when you nervously approached her stall in the overcast morning market. Instead, she had greets you with a tense smile and a hand-waved invitation to sit on one of the barrels behind her counter, her lips pointedly pressed.

Stilted conversation proves that you can keep control of yourself around her, even if on occasion some glimpse of her face or chance harmony of her voice makes you shudder and clamp your eyes shut. Niranye provides a ratty rag-paper map and lets you sketch your planned route on it, then list supplies on the back. She has already created a pile of gear separate from her inventory that you sort through with a critical eye. It’s clear that however capable a traveller she may be, she isn’t accustomed to the trackless way over the Winterhold glacier. She hasn’t prepared rope to cross crevasses or extra furs to line the inside of a shelter dug inside a snowbank. You refuse to trust your life to a crack-handled ice axe like the one she digs out of a dusty crate, either.

“Well, it’s all I’ve got,” Niranye snaps. “It’s not exactly a common tool.”

“I’m sorry, but—no, I’m not sorry. I’d rather go without than trust this not to fail,” you hiss back.

Ultimately, though, it’s enough. There’s no sense to delaying any longer in order to search for better gear that Niranye insists would have to come out of your purse, especially not with the first real snow of winter becoming more and more likely on every passing day. You’ve made longer and more perilous journeys with less preparation. As it is, being so close to leaving is already making you restless. The sooner you go, the sooner you will have the gold to fix your damned hand—because as afraid as you are of the Thalmor agents posted at the College, so very near to Winterhold town proper, you are angrier at the unreliable ruin of your hand. Of your whole self.

With that handled, there is little to occupy your time and your mind. What do you do at the Palace but eat and sleep? And even if it wasn’t too early for drinking, you’re in no rush to return to the New Gnisis Cornerclub and see who remembers your mad flight last night. You're unused to this stagnation. Before your imprisonment, all your days were occupied one way or another: in the wilderness there was always travelling, fighting, hunting, or camping to be done; during the scanter time you spent in towns, there was haggling, healing, repairing gear, and talking, whether to find jobs or to relax. Even resting was a task on its own, since your body was always worn from the road.

At loose ends, you wander the market until one of the guards sticks out his spear butt at your ankle and gruffly demands, “You got business here, greyskin?”

“I was waiting for a friend,” you lie, because you know better than to get on the wrong side of a Windhelm guard. It’s the same caution that makes you bite your tongue despite the slur.

“Wait somewhere else.”

You don’t let yourself glower until you’ve started walking away.

Fine. _Fine,_  you’ll go… stare at the walls of your room. You could work on reinforcing the worn seams of your second-hand clothing, at least until you lose patience with your hand’s erratic twitching. Or perhaps you’ll try to sleep.

(What _shit_. Is there nothing to do that doesn’t make you want to stab something or cry?)

If you sleep extra now, maybe you can avoid sleeping on at least the first night of travel with Niranye.

One of the guards at the Palace door doesn’t recognize you. Scowling, he denies you entrance until his partner prods him and mutters something in his ear. You loathe the incredulous dismay on his face even more than the scowl.

Yes, fool, _this_ is the Dragonborn of legend. Gods, he’s offended enough at meeting you sober and in daylight; how would he have reacted if he had meet you last night?

There was a time when people were _awed_ to meet you. Some, certainly, snarled when they learned that the Dragonborn was Dunmer, or scoffed at the idea. Stormcloak was not alone in that. But _others_ … Divines, you were beloved. You were a hero. You were—

“Dragonborn,” Stormcloak calls. Your angry stride across the hall stutters. From his throne, he beckons you with a tilt of his chin.

Anger flares up inside you higher than ever. By sleeping most of the days away, you have avoided seeing him for the last week, but a week is not enough time to quell your fury over the last conversation you had with him. A _year_ would not be.

Nonetheless, you comply to the summons with your jaw clenched. (Were things not much the same the last time you stood before him on this throne? Perhaps Stormcloak will never cease enraging you.)

“Lleros,” he says when you stop at the dais, this one a friendlier greeting. From the warmth of his voice and his smile, a stranger could be forgiven for thinking Stormcloak was your friend.

“Jarl Stormcloak,” you say coldly. Surprised as you are to hear your name from his mouth, it’s not enough.

“It’s been a while since we’ve had a chance to talk.” At this there is no controlling your scoff. Stormcloak pauses but doesn’t bat an eye. The obvious concealment of his emotions is not reassuring. “Come to dinner tonight.”

“I’m leaving.”

Finally: a real reaction. Shock lies brief but unfettered on his face before his mouth tightens into a frown. Azura, that’s satisfying.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” you continue, then lie, “I’ll be busy preparing for the trip tonight. My apologies.”

Stormcloak’s fingers rub against arm of the throne, just where the stone has already been polished dark by friction and skin oils. The work of his predecessors, or him alone? “I recall you promised me a fair chance to speak with you.”

So you promised him time—so what? A week’s delay won’t kill him, but it would damn well feel like it was killing you.

“I intend to return.”

“Leaving Windhelm would be unwise,” he warns, still frowning. “I cannot guarantee your safety on the road, even in my own hold. The Thalmor are insidious. And I don’t have men and horses free to escort you about the province.”

The caution makes you burn, makes your lip lift in an involuntary snarl. Ulfric Stormcloak doesn’t care about you—or if he does, it’s for your knowledge and your power. He has already admitted that. And now that he thinks his prejudice may be repelling you, he tries to _frighten_ you back into his arms?

“I've found my own protection for the road,” you retort, failing to mention that this protection is an Altmer merchant whom even you are uncertain about. Whom you would never trust your life to in less desperate circumstances. “And unless you forget, I’m a warrior myself. I’ve killed _dragons_.”

“You were much less certain of your own strength not so long ago,” he snaps.

Oh, see: how quickly he turns to clawing at your wounds when you resist him. Infuriated beyond self-preservation, you sneer, “Your good food and board, I’m sure.”

A muscle ticks in Stormcloak’s jaw. “What is so important that you need to endanger yourself for it?”

“Money,” you grind out.

“You have the hospitality of a Jarl!”

“I cannot sit here and do _nothing_!” you shout.

Even before it has finished echoing in the great stone hall, you are afraid. A voice inside you whimpers that you have earned retribution. Yet, refusing to buckle beneath the dread, you clench your fists until your nails bite your palms and glare up at Stormcloak. “I cannot be helpless,” you insist, your mouth twisting as the word itself makes you feel so. “I cannot just… sit here and... _rot_.”

His stare remains fixed for long, painful moments before, remarkably, it softens. Even as angry as you are, this transfixes you. Every time you witness him relent, it is a new and bewildering astonishment. You have the feeling that Ulfric Stormcloak is not the kind of man who bends—how can he be? And yet…

Unsatisfied still, his mouth flat and his eyes grim, Stormcloak says only, “Be sure you return when you are done.”

You nod shortly, taking it for a dismissal whether or not it was meant as one, and walk away quickly toward the stairs to your room. For once, though, you are not leaving in terror or utter rage. It’s… unsettling.

 

* * *

 

The near-dawn sky is high, green as a river clam’s shell, and so clear that you can see the shadows of the Velothi Mountains rising up in the far east. All you can think is that surely this kind of dawn is a sign of Azura’s blessing for the journey—or at least, you hope it is. You pray it is.

Despite the early hour, the docks around you are noisy with life and business. Slow crowds of Argonians have shuffled out of their assemblage swaddled in motley layers of fur and shawls, and have gone to work with cargo hooks, nets, winches, wagons, and endless coils of rope. Ships have been departing for almost an hour, since even before the sky began to lighten. The departures board, scribed in careful chalk by a short Dunmer with a shock of golden-blond hair, says that these are mostly fishing and whaling ships, and they were all small enough that they must be local: thus, familiar enough with the river not to fear the dark.

Niranye and you agreed to leave at dawn. This, as you have been realizing for the last hour, is an upsettingly unspecific unit of time.

(Or perhaps she’s not— no. You cannot think that.)

The _Farrun Flier_ is easing out of her dock on schedule at seven bells exactly when a voice behind you says, “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.” Then— “Oh, _pigshit_ ,” as you flinch and stagger away to press your forehead against a wall, gasping.

When you can turn back to Niranye, your skin smarting from the cold stone, she is standing there with her arms folded, two heavy packs dropped on the ground at her feet. Her face, at least, is half-swathed by a green and gold scarf that picks out her eyes like new leaves as she watches you closely.

“I hope you don’t plan to do that often,” you say, shaky but angry. “Good morning.”

“Mm,” she says, which is… well enough.

You take the pack she gestures at, saying nothing to the fact that it’s obviously smaller than hers. You _are_ visibly more muscular than she is, even after three months in a dungeon. You button the loaned horker-hide cape over your cloak and struggle your boots through fleece-lined over-breeches, relieved to finally seal the chill off completely. It’s the work of a few moments to secure your roll of uncured furs—your meagre contribution to the gear—to the top of the pack and heave it onto your shoulders.

“Here,” Niranye says, before you can turn away to take the last steps down to the docks.

Carefully, you accept the small loaf she offers from a handkerchief. It’s almost the size of your spread hand, made of softly leavened wheat and marbled by a crust of oven-crisp cheese. When you take a cautious bite, steam explodes into the cold air. The inside is studded with crumbs of bacon and onion.

Softly, and far more sincerely than before, you say, “Thank you.”

The two of you slip down onto the docks, ducking distracted workers on your way over to the far end, nearest to the mouth of the river. You climb onto the short retaining wall and jump over first. You land on the bank almost hip deep in drifted snow, though thanks to the over-breeches it doesn’t get into your boots. Niranye peers down skeptically until you stomp free and make a more open space for her. Then, sighing, she flumps into the snow after you.

Breaking trail up the bank and across the snowy shore north of Windhelm is hard, sweaty work even though it’s cold enough to burn your nose and lips. Higher on the shore, though, the snow is shallower, patched with ice where the late autumn sun has melted it back to the rocks below. Despite the clumsy grip of your mitt, you make sure not to drop the loaf Niranye brought. It’s _delicious_.

“This is going to take more than a week,” you hear Niranye groan, likely not intended for your ears.

“It’ll get easier,” you call back.

“You know, I talked with the carriage driver last night,” she huffs, then stumbles on a loose stone. “Damn! He said he just took his last trip north for the season. Apparently the Wayward Pass has started snowing shut. Otherwise, I’d be—trying to convince you to hire a ride right about now.”

Her voice makes you shiver, but you are prepared for it and are focusing intensely on her name: _Niranye. Niranye. Niranye_. This woman muttering curses as she slips and sinks behind you is nothing like Elenwen except in the most superficial of ways, and even then only passingly. You know her. You trust her.

(You _do_.)

Making a mental note to cut Niranye a staff when you reach the treeline, you adjust the strap of your pack and strike east.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you lovelies for all the appalled comments! Now that I know you all love cliffhangers so much, I'll have to make sure to write lots more. :)
> 
> Also: are the POV+number chapter titles all right, or would you prefer titles that are more descriptive/possibly easier to keep track of? If option B, feel free to suggest any titles you find appropriate, because they are my nemesis.


	12. Lleros (9)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You have to keep moving. You just have to keep moving, or you'll die.

“Shor's balls!” you shout at the river. “ _Honestly_!”

“Wonderful,” Niranye mutters, tentatively approaching the edge of the steep bank to peer down.

The river is a winding band of marbled grey ice, one of a hundred that braid across the outwash plain, all made of meltwater coming down from the glacier that looms blue-shadowed in the distance. You have been walking across them for the last two days, everything from tiny rivulets to broad shallow streams that curve around endless gravel hills. Like the others, this river is frozen, but it's wider and deeper, running through a steep defile cut into the ground—and there are cracks in the ice and patches of darkness on the surface that betray flowing water close beneath.

You glare at the looming wall of ice from which the river springs. What good is Skyrim's weather if you can't even expect water from a _glacier_ to freeze solid?

“Drals,” Niranye says. She has discovered that using your false name doesn’t provoke panic. You think that's because it’s a false name—not that Niranye knows—unconnected to any of your memories, and short enough that her Summerset accent doesn't carry through. “Is this a problem?”

The river flows almost directly east-west, blocking your way north. No doubt that somewhere to the west you will find where it bends north toward the glacier. But that may not be for miles, and even then there might be another fork in your path. Besides which, the land has been rising steadily for days, and you feel enough pain in the muscles of your calves just trying to walk north without adding the difficulty of venturing toward the foothills of the Karmanthors.

You've been travelling for a week already, thrice delayed by Niranye's accidents: a broken snowshoe, a burned hand, and a torn pack strap that took an entire afternoon to fix. The rations in Niranye's pack are half gone. Every day you wake to aching scars and a trembling hand.

“No,” you lie, after a moment. “We've just got to go a bit upstream.”

The best you find, after twenty minutes of walking, is a long stretch of river where the snow lies smooth and unbroken on the surface of the ice. There's no running water at the surface here, at least. That's good enough. Every warning you've ever had about walking on autumn ice is screaming in your head, but there's no _time_ for that.

 _If I fall through_... You don't finish the thought because the ending is obvious. And it's not upsetting: Well, if you fall through, then that's that problem solved.

You spare the barest of thought for Niranye to grunt, “I'll go first.” You're heavier than she is, after all. You wouldn't want to risk her life.

“I hope you know what you're doing,” Niranye says as you clamber down the bank. The nervous edge to her voice says that she has an inkling of how dangerous this is. Still, she trusts you enough to go through with this.

As soon as your feet touch the river below, you get down on your knees, then your belly. The snow on the surface of the ice is deep enough that you have to keep your back arched painfully in order to hold your head high enough to breathe. Arms and legs spread as wide as possible, you push your way through the snow as if you were swimming. It's exhausting work that you suspect would feel ludicrous if it weren't for how tense you are.

Beneath you, the ice creaks. A series of high-pitched crackles skitter by: a fracturing invisible beneath the snow.

Gods, your heart is beating hard enough that it might damage the ice.

Careful. Careful.

How thick is the ice? How far away are you from death? An inch? A hand's breadth? Two solid feet?

It's not upsetting. The adrenaline has saturated you so deeply that it doesn't even feel real any more.

At last, you reach the other bank. Panting and shaking, you struggle up the icy incline, then roll over the lip onto solid ground. Everything is so _bright_ when you sit up and look around.

You are alive.

“Come on,” you call to Niranye, who looks small on the opposite side of the river. “It's fine.”

“Are you certain about this?” Niranye yells.

“Of course!”

She hesitates long enough that you gesture impatiently. At last, she slides down onto the ice. Every movement of hers is so tentative that you start calling instructions down to her. Slow, clumsy, she struggles across on her elbows and belly.

“Drals...”

She has stopped moving. “Halfway there!” you shout.

“ _Drals_.”

“What?”

“I can't.”

“Niranye, come _on_.”

“Drals, _no_.” Her voice has become a strangled croak. “I can't. The ice is going to break.”

The wind whips snow into your eyes. Hissing with pain, you squint down at Niranye's frozen, spread-eagled form on the ice below. “You'll be fine!” you insist, struggling not to sound impatient. “I weigh more than you do. Just keep moving.”

“I _can't_ ,” she repeats, panic choking up her voice. And you know this tone, this—despair, this surrender to panic that creeps into inexperienced travellers and warriors when they become frightened. Give them even a moment to wallow in it, and they'll flounder and drown. Worse, they'll drag you right down with them. You know from experience that you've got to pull Niranye out of it fast—

—but by all the Divines, didn't she promise you that she knew what she was doing? Wasn't she supposed to be your protection, not just a, a millstone around your neck? Constantly slowing you down, getting hurt, getting frightened, and now just sitting down in the middle of the trail like an obstinate mule when all you can think about is getting to Winterhold _now_ , because every passing second you spend penniless and broken is torture in and of itself.

“ _Stop it_!” you roar.

“Listen to me!” Niranye shrieks. “The ice is going to _break_. I do not have the bloody _luck_ to get across without falling through, do you understand me? I am not that gods-curst fortunate. Drals, for pity's sake, throw me a damn _rope_.”

Cursing, you throw down your pack and rip it open. The rope is buried beneath half of the emergency supplies, which you hurl into the snow.

Niranye is not at risk. She's not _really_ at risk; the ice won't break. It didn't break for you, did it? You're still alive. She's just panicking. She's not going to die. She's not.

You throw the coil of rope so hard that it sails over Niranye's head and lands by her ankles. Clumsily, she latches on to the line trailing over her arm.

“ _Move_ ,” you shout, winding the rope around your wrists. You brace yourself, Niranye kicks feebly through the snow—and, cursing her hesitance beneath your breath all the while, you bodily haul her across the ice.

When Niranye finally drags herself up the frozen bank, you are sweating and flushed, hot with anger as much as exhaustion.

“What am I even paying you for?” you shout, flinging down the rope. “What are you doing for me? What do I ever do but look after you?”

“ _Stop_ it,” Niranye yells.

(“Stop,” the Ambassador commands, interrupting your desperate babble, oh Divines, is she angry, did you say something wrong, have you not told her enough?)

You flinch back, nearly tripping over a bag of potions that you threw in the snow. Unable to speak, breathe, _think_ , you settle for a wordless snarl of frustration and begin throwing things back into your pack. Leaving the rope for Niranye to deal with, leaving Niranye herself in a shaking huddle on the bank, you stumble toward the distant glacier once again.

Behind you, Niranye shouts, “What in the name of the Divines is wrong with you?”

Your hand. Your scars. Your nightmares. Everything she's delaying you from fixing.

You have to keep moving. You just have to keep moving, or you'll die.

*

All this time travelling with Niranye, you have wanted a quiet companion. You wished for her habitual attempts at conversation to cease so that the anxious vise of your spine might relax. Now you have you wish, and it is terrible. Niranye's icy silence for the rest of the day is torture—truly. The Ambassador had made silence an effective weapon, a subtle knife of terror and anticipation of her potential displeasure. That Niranye is no interrogator does not make her any less an unwitting torturer. For once, you're relieved to crawl into your bedroll at the end of the day, even if sleep only lasts a few hours.

Niranye is a painfully light sleeper. Your nightmares always wake her before you. This has turned out to be a good thing: as irate as she is to have to shake you awake several times on some nights, and to deal with your confused whimpering and pawing around in the dark before you figure out where you are, she has never witnessed you Shouting flame or force in destructive panic. She isn’t hurt or dead.

More importantly, she does not know you are Dragonborn. She cannot betray you. How do you know, really, that she wouldn't? Especially now that you've made her angry. Stupid young fool. You never learn when to hold your tongue.

How did you not think ahead enough to see the risk? If Niranye had happened to sleep deeply, you might already have given away your real identity, or killed her, or burned the tent down around you both at _best_.

But you can’t bring yourself to be grateful for this dubious fortune. You just do your best not to think about the nights.

*

Over the next two days, the foothills of the Karmanthors press in, leaving you nowhere to travel but north up the ever-narrowing strip of floodplain sandwiched between the mountains, the sea, and the glacier ahead. The forest fringing the foothills thins and dwindles until nothing remains of it but a scattering of spindly spruce. The constant wind howling off the slope of the Karmanthors has bent every trunk due east like a thousand fingers accusing the unseen sea.

Finally, eight days after leaving Windhelm, you come in mid-morning to a sudden plateau of blue ice that bars the land in front of you from left to right as far as the eye can see. The wind blows mist against your face from the waterfall frothing over the edge of the glacier and into a small lake below. The rest of the glacier's side slopes down to the boulder-studded plain.

On your own, you would tackle the direct route up the steep hill without hesitation. But Niranye... Much as it makes you grind your teeth, you have to break the silence between you and Niranye for the first time in days.“There’s probably a valley that goes to the top,” you say grudgingly. “Or a gulley, even. From water running down. It could be easier to climb.”

“Assuming we can find one,” she finishes. “And assuming it’s not too steep or too narrow. Oh, but you don't have to look after me. I wouldn't want to slow you down.”

Fine. You'll take her at her word if she wants to mock you. Without another word, you stride for the foot of the glacier and attack it with fervor.

The hill turns out to be taller and steeper than it looked from a distance. Your hasty pace shows itself as foolishness: soon enough, your chest is clutched by a vicious stitch and you have to drop to a trembling stumble. Niranye, climbing sedately and steadily, catches up.

You take a break to chew some rabbit jerky, too embarrassed to meet Niranye's eyes. Chastened by your own exhaustion, you take the slope more carefully.

By the time you're halfway up, you find yourself trembling with exhaustion again. Now Niranye is wheezing too. Irritated, you keep reaching back to grab her hand and pull her a little higher.

“Don't stop,” you warn her.

“I'm not about to,” she snaps back.

At last, you pause for breath. The effort has made you sweat beneath your clothing, and now it’s starting to cool. Your fingers twice-swaddled in gloves and mitts are tingling.

Reluctantly, you call back to Niranye, “Did you bring the ice axe?”

When you look back, she has dropped down to her hands and knees for a moment of rest. She struggles to reach an arm backwards into her pack. After some effort, she pulls the axe from the side of her pack, in the process nearly losing the summoning staff that was tucked alongside it. “Aren’t you glad I did,” she mutters, passing the axe forward.

Gritting your teeth, you loop the axe’s strap around your wrist and pray the fissured oak handle won’t choose this day to snap entirely.

In places the slope threatens verticality. You are forced to slither up on your hands and knees, belly-crawling through the snow and hacking holds into the ice ahead with the axe when there is no snow pack or creviced ice to grab. Despite your over-breeches, snow gets up your ankles and into your boots. Your fingers start to burn with cold. The straps of your pack cut painfully into your shoulders. It seems to weigh as much as a bull elk.

How is Niranye managing without an axe of her own? You can’t fathom it, but when you glance back to watch, she seems to have no trouble finding grips in the ice, only in hauling herself up. Some are the holes where you chopped the axe in, but in other places you can’t even tell what she’s clinging to. Her gloves and boots stick like magic. Perhaps they’re enchanted in some way.

Loose snow is more difficult to handle than ice. You nearly have to swim through it, which is exhausting. When the wind whips up, it pelts your face in stinging sheets. Other times it simply crumbles away beneath your grasp and slides downhill, leaving you pawing for support in the powdery mess.

“Bastard,” you mutter, because there is snow down your _neck_. Beneath all three of your scarves, somehow. “Icy son of a filthy half-bred Daedroth.”

Then, quick as your father's punitive ear-pulling, a whole sheet of loose powder collapses away from the denser pack below. The world goes out from beneath you. Niranye shrieks—

—such a _shriek_ he makes, a noise you never thought a man could make, not a big Legionary like him, and you're glad it's not you but he won't _stop_ —

—and Niranye grabs your ankle for support to stop herself from tumbling down the slope with the collapsing snow. The wrench slams you face first into the snow, into reality and light and biting cold.

“ _Kyne_!” you howl, throat wrecked with strain. The strap of the ice axe around your wrist is a line of pure pain, but at least you and the axe are secured well enough that Niranye doesn't drag you down. She just holds on silently to your ankle as you curse and shake.

By what must be an outright _blessing_ from whatever Divine, Daedra, or saint is watching, your fit of flashbacks and hyperventilation doesn’t make you lose your grip. It comes on hard and goes slowly, leaving you lying face-down with the snow stinging your face. At last, your breath comes back to normal. (But gods, her _scream_.)

“Come on,” you croak at last, shaking your free ankle at Niranye. It’s all you have the energy to move. She continues clinging mutely below until you shake your ankle again. “Come. On.”

On a slightly more level section of slope several agonizing feet higher, you roll over onto your back and lie spread-eagle in the deep snow. You hear Niranye crawl up beside you and collapse, wheezing. You flail out a hand until you touch her arm. Your fingers are nearly numb, but the solidity of something that isn’t cold, dead ice is reassuring.

Except for the fur fringe of your hood framing your vision, there could be nothing left in the world but the cloudless blue sky above. Blood pounds in your ears. Wilderness silence roars. You have to resist the urge to fall into the endless blue and sleep.

Painfully, you sit up on your elbows. The sun is no longer glaring heatless light from directly overhead. How long have you been climbing? Two hours? Three?

“We have to go down,” Niranye gasps. Her teeth are chattering so violently that she’s hard to understand.

Some sudden intuition or memory triggers alarm in you. You reach over and yank down her scarf to look right at her face for the first time in hours.

You curse. Her skin is no longer saffron-ruddy with cold and effort but sallow, bloodless. Previously unseen freckles pop on her cheeks. _Kyne_ , Lleros, what kind of healer are you?

“Hang on,” you order, sitting up straighter. Concern overrides your anger as if it never was. “Niranye, just hold on a moment. Here, I’ve got…” The effort of struggling out of the straps and dragging your pack out of the snow is monumental. All your muscles scream.

Forget about being a _healer_ —what kind of adventurer are you? What kind of Reach-son? You know better than to be reckless in the cold. Your mother would rip your ear off.

You swing your pack around into your lap, grunting with effort. It makes you slide a few frightening inches in the snow. Niranye doesn’t move.

Was it your pack or Niranye’s that had the potions in it? You can’t remember. It takes all your training as a healer and a fighter to keep calm as you fumble the pack open and paw through the top layer of gear: water unfrozen in enchanted skins, an extra scroll of Fireball, bandages… The potions should be in here with the rest of the emergency supplies. Where, where are…

There. You tug out the linen bag of clicking vials. You have to pull off your mitt and glove to unknot the bag and pull one out. The vial should be barely warm to the touch, but it _burns_ your fingers.

“Niranye. Niranye, here.”

She has pulled her scarf back up over her face. The green-gold fabric is crusted with frost around the circle where her warm breath puffs. Face scrunching, she utters a garbled cry of protest when you pull the scarf down again.

“Don’t…”

“Drink this,” you interrupt. “Niranye, come on. Here.”

You set the uncorked vial to her chapped lower lip, wait for her to seal her lips around it, and pour. The entire thing vanishes in one swallow.

Coughing violently, Niranye sits bolt upright in a shower of snow. Her eyes flare and her skin blazes with a hot flush of blood.

“Gods,” she chokes out. “Auri-El, I never thought I’d be warm again. Oh sweet, blessed warmth.”

You are already popping the cork on a second vial. It goes down like harshly spiced wine, burning through every vein in your body in a heartbeat. The flash-thaw of parts that you hadn’t even realized were going numb is _agony_. Relief also, yes—but agony. Then there is nothing but glowing, throbbing warmth. Even the fingers and face exposed to the air can’t feel a breath of chill.

You extend your bare hand over to Niranye. After a suspicious moment, she pulls off her own sodden mitt and puts her long gold fingers in yours. True to its name, Healing Hands radiates from within your clasped palms, its light bright enough to illuminate through the flesh around your fingerbones. Though you feel nothing but the gentle drain of magicka, Niranye sighs with relief.

You don’t give her everything you have—that would be excessive, given how deep your magicka stores are—but, guilty, you give her a little more than you should. More than is wise when you still have to revitalize yourself and still save some for an emergency. Now your mother _and_ Master Colette are angry in your head.

And you... you are simply tired. Of yourself. Of circumstances. Of these small margins by which you constantly avoid disaster.

After you have healed away your strained tendons and the million tiny tears of exhausted muscle, the pain is gone but the drain of spent magicka leaves a chilly hollow in your chest. You allow yourself ten long breaths to gird yourself for the task that remains. Then you say, “Let’s go.”

The hill is steep enough that the upper edge of it stands out against the sky. It’s not the Throat of the World. It’s not so far. (But it's far _enough_ , your bones say.)

Desperate to be finished, you clamber with renewed energy that burns away fast. Looking up starts to hurt your neck, so you keep your head down. Just endure, Lleros. Focus on the next step, the next grip. And the next.

 _Shor Mountain-Maker be praised_. The slope is easing, levelling out. You don’t think you can stand without the weight of your pack pitching you straight backwards down the hill, so you continue to crawl on all fours.

Wind-whipped ice digs painfully into your knees and crackles beneath your fingers. It reflects brilliant white spackles of light from the sun above. Still, you crawl and crawl until Niranye says, “Drals. _Drals_.”

You look over your shoulder. Niranye is standing upright, legs akimbo to support her exhausted weight, staring into the distance in silhouette against the sky like the statue of some victorious hero.

You follow her gaze forward. A barren plateau of ice and dry, swirling snow stretches as far as you can see. In the hazy distance, the ice’s western reaches rise to the blue teeth of the Karmanthors. And to the east there is the blinding glitter of sunlight on a field of diamonds: the Sea of Ghosts.

You are on top of the glacier. Riding an avalanche frozen in time.

“We are _done_ for the day,” Niranye announces, slinging her pack onto the ice.

 _I think we're done for the day_.

Her voice strikes a chord deep in your skull. You shudder and scrabble away across the cold stone—stone, rough stone, but the light is blinding—not dark. No darkness. No walls.

“Shit,” you gasp, and curl forward over your knees. You hood falls low enough to block out almost all light from outside. Nose nearly in the snow, you shiver there in private darkness until the shivering is no longer panic but cold seeping in again.

(Shame. Frustration. And weariness. You are so _tired_ of this.)

Slowly, stiffly, you get to your feet. “We’ve got to walk a bit more,” you say, and start trudging farther onto the glacier without glancing at Niranye.

Camp, when you finally break it on stable ice away from the edge, is a quiet affair. It always is. Without trees for support the tent is lopsided: the front of the canvas is raised by poles and the back is held down by stakes in the ice. A second sheet of patchwork hide covers the whole thing and angles down in front to narrow the entrance. Inside the dark hollow, you and Niranye have to stuff your bedrolls in tightly to fit side by side on spread bearskins over the ice. Despite the cramped space, Niranye leaves a handsbreadth of space between your furs and hers. The message is painfully clear.

No fire tonight: there are no trees on the glacier. The bundle of firewood tied to Niranye’s pack is just enough to support a magically fed fire for a night if the cold becomes an emergency. All the light you have is just the sunset dying amber behind the Karmanthors and the stars poking out overhead.

Already sitting partially inside your bedrolls, you and Niranye gnaw unleavened rye flatbread and strips of dried venison without looking at each other. Your guilt makes you want to offer Niranye a hot drink, but she's drinking her private bottle of sujamma cold, grimacing but too prickly to glance at you. The shame is too much for you to break the silence.

As Niranye packs away the cups and food, you comb the tangles and frost out of your sweaty hair. Braiding it leaves your ears and neck cold, but otherwise you will have a mane of incurable knots by the time you reach Winterhold. A lumpy woolen scarf wrapped around your head does nearly as well for warmth.

Then Niranye pulls the front flap down all the way, weighting it with your packs. Impenetrable blackness.

Shame makes you squirm in your bedroll.

Despite the darkness and silence, the scant inches of distance between your furs and Niranye's feel like a wall. Look what you've done, Lleros, that she would rather huddle up and shiver through the night than press against you for warmth. Frankly, though, you deserve to be cold without her.

It was unfair of you to berate her, to punish her for the delays in your travel. Niranye wasn’t lying when she said she was reliable protection on the road: her combination of spell scrolls, a staff that summons a flame atronach, and the occasional jab with a short spear have worked well against two packs of wolves, an ice wraith, and one very belligerent bull elk that took offense to your camp. Your bow has been so scarcely needed that you've left it unstrung and safe in its leather wraps for the previous two days. It's not her fault she's also the most clumsy or cursed companion you’ve ever had.

The river's ice was weak and you knew it. Pushing so hard to climb the glacier was dangerous and you _knew better_.

You've been unstable this entire time, haven't you? In your rush to get to Winterhold and get your money, you've nearly killed yourself with thoughtless haste several times over. Worse, you've nearly killed Niranye. Idiot. A lucky, much-blessed idiot you are, to have escaped disaster yet again.

Unable to bear the nausea, you wrench open the bottle of sleeping poison and take a bigger gulp than you should have. You fall asleep with the bottle still in your hand, barely corked.

*

You know the Winterhold glacier is scarcely a hundred miles from north to south and only half that length from the Karmanthors to the sea. Or at least, it _was_ that wide when the Cartographers Guild last conducted a full and detailed survey of Skyrim. Geological features being as stable as they are, there hasn’t been much call for new maps in the last century. Still, you recall Master Tolfdir musing that the glacier might well have lost part of its mass since the earthquake that took much of Winterhold into the sea. You’re not educated enough on the nature of glaciers to know if that’s a likely event.

Either way, a hundred miles of bare ice in real life is much different than on a map. When the way is clear, you and Niranye make good time. When the ice is riddled with crevasses or covered by snow, your travel slows to a crawl.

“You've got to test every step,” you tell Niranye, demonstrating with your walking stick. She prods the snow in front of herself with the butt of her summoning staff. “There could be holes anywhere.”

She thins her lips and doesn't reply.

Mara's mercy. You owe her an apology, but the craven part of your soul is so frightened of her displeasure that it's all you can do not to beg forgiveness, and that's _not_ the same thing. Maybe if you can just get her to talk to you... You take a deep breath to steady yourself before trying to press on. “Have you ever travelled up north much before?”

“Never fear,” she drawls poisonously. “I won't let my inexperience slow you down.”

“I didn't mean...”

But at her scornful glance, you let it drop.

Silent, creeping travel is painful. Necessary as it is, the time wasted testing the snow in front of you with walking sticks before each step makes you _seethe_ and grind your teeth. You have to bite back the urge to snap at Niranye to stop doing what you taught her how to do and hurry up.

 _Be careful, fool_ , you remind yourself. _This is not you. Learn some damn control_.

You manage two full days without incident. You have nightmares, true, and every waking hour is a balancing act between guilt and anxiety, but you manage not to make things worse. When you pray at dawn and dusk, it is mostly for the coming day when you can get away from Niranye and the relationship you have destroyed. In between, you silently curse yourself.

_Idiot. Stupid child. Never could hold your tongue, could you?_

Without warning, a shriek breaks the silence. Next to you, Niranye lurches and her staff goes flying. You snatch at her cloak reflexively. All of a sudden she's keening, horrible, hurting—what happened, what...

“Get me out,” she grates. “Drals, get me _out_.”

_let me out, please let me out, please I haven't done anything, I don't know, just let me out, I swear I won't—_

“Shhh,” you croak, pulling blindly at Niranye's cloak because you still can't see what's wrong, only it makes her scream again and you jerk. “Shhh, stop, please just—Niranye—please shh, please...”

Finally she heaves over onto her side in the snow and lies there, keening with every breath. You fall down beside her, legs shaking too hard to hold you. It's all you can do not to throw up. No wall, no bars, no darkness...

“My ankle,” she gasps. “Drals, please.”

There's a dark, glassy hole beneath the snow where she fell, scarcely wide enough for one leg. It must plunge hundreds of feet into the depths of the glacier. Despite her careful testing of the snow crust, she managed to step into a moulin—and from the sound of her agony, she wrenched her ankle in the fall.

“Oh Divines, oh Stendarr... Auri-El, _please_...”

Even in your anxiety, Master Colette's first lesson comes back to you: _What people want from a healer, first and foremost, is confidence. You don't need to work miracles; you just need to make them feel like you're in control_. Oh, you might not have control over your own frail mind, but when there's blood everywhere, when bones are broken through the skin, when innards are outside and you know there's nothing to do but call for the Kiss at the End... in _this_ you have experience.

Niranye is relying on you, and you must not let her down again.

“I've got you. Please—please, if you can, I'm sorry, but please be as quiet as you can. It's all right. I've got you. Just let me...”

Pushing aside your nausea, you cast Seeing and examine Niranye's ankle as she groans. With concentration, you focus through the foreground glow of her flesh (bleeding inside, bruising, but no broken skin, thank Kyne) and to the bone. Her tibia is fractured in two places.

“Never fear,” you say, hearing your healer's voice emerge as if some other person is speaking. “I know it hurts, but this is a simple matter. The bones are still in place.”

“Of all the luck,” Niranye groans, still curled into a ball. “All the fucking luck. My cursed fucking luck.”

She keeps wheezing this like a furious mantra as you strip off your mitts and gloves and place your hands around her booted ankle to cast Healing Hands. Bones have always been tricky for you, but with concentration...

—he's only just stopped screaming and you're hoping that this is the last time, that they'll give up now, but there's barely time to think that thought before there's another crunching _thud_ and another bone in his hand breaks and he screams, he screams, you press your hands over your ears but you're whimpering as well, you can't stop it, just please don't let them hear you, don't attract any attention, Divines please make them keep hurting him and not you, not you, not you—

“Be quiet!” you shout, as the spell falters and fails. “Azura's sake, just shut up!”

“I am in _pain_!” Niranye yells back.

With a muffled cry of frustration, you press your hands over your ears and hunch over. “I'm sorry,” you grind out, angry at her and yourself and the world. “I'm trying. Just please, shut _up_. I can't, I'm sorry. I'm _trying_. I'm trying...”

Then Niranye whispers, “All right,” her voice shaking as much as the hand she presses to your knee, the closest part of you that she can reach. “Drals. All right.”

With both of you breathing heavily and trembling, you go back to healing. Her bones fuse back together in fits and starts, not because your magicka is strained by this task but because your control is. When the well of magicka in your chest _is_ cold and near to empty, you stop casting and sit Niranye up so you can dig in her pack for supplies.

“Here we are,” you prattle soothingly. “I'll make tea. You look cold.”

“Thank you,” she says, quiet with exhaustion.

The weather makes it difficult to check her skin for clamminess, but her breathing and pulse have been fine since the injury, and her pupils look normal. It'll be fine to give her something to drink. Niranye needs hot food and drink as often as you do in cold weather. Maybe more often, since she can’t summon a magic flame to warm her hands and face like you can. It’s about the only Destruction spell you know, but it’s still one more than her. “Fire was never in my nature,” she explained irritably. “Not like you dark elves.”

You pack snow into the kettle and melt it over a small, focused flame in your palm. A pinch of frost mirriam and thistle goes in to brew. Twenty copper pennies for a pouch of each at the White Phial, and you're glad you bought them.

“Here you go. There.” Anxiety and guilt twist your stomach as you watch Niranye drink. “How does your ankle feel?”

“Better. Sore.”

“I'm not quite done... Don't move it, there's still a weak spot to strengthen. I'll finish in just a moment.”

Waiting for your magicka to return to full strength, you huddle over your own cup of tea and dart occasional glances up at Niranye through your eyelashes. The wind picks up, unobstructed over the sheer surface of the glacier, and stings like a million needles. Flinching makes Niranye catch your eye.

You're not certain whether you're about to vomit or speak until the words come up. “Niranye, listen. I need—I have to...” Her brows are knit. Deep breaths. “I owe you an apology. What I said before. It was wrong. I was unfair, I lost my temper, I... I'm sorry.” Your chin trembles uncontrollably; you could almost choke on the words _i'm so sorry please i didn't mean to i won't do it again_ but you refuse them because this is not that speech. She is not that Altmer.

“I can't promise that I won't do it again,” you add, bitterly aware of your own weakness. “I have—I'm so angry. I lose it. But it's not your fault. It's never your fault. I'm trying. I'll try harder. And I'm sorry.”

Her response, when it finally comes, is unexpected, and so unexpectedly gentle. “They really hurt, you didn't they.”

A brittle, giddy laugh breaks out of your throat. She doesn't have to say who she means. Evidently, neither did you. Is it so obvious? “Yes,” you say, nearly sob. Deep breaths. Control. “How did you...?”

She gestures to her wrist, hidden beneath her robes and glove: the manacle scar on your wrist, she means. “Most people who hold something against me are angry. Not afraid.”

So: that is your secret, exposed so easily. You're too emotionally drained to tell whether you're relieved that it's out or terrified at what she might discover next.

Niranye sighs heavily. “Would it help if I told you more about me? If you knew who I was?”

You roughly knuckle your eyes. The red stains on the back of your glove give you a moment of vertigo until you remember that it's your war paint, not blood. “Yes. Yes. It might.”

“Or—my voice...”

“I'll get used to it. At least, I can try. Perhaps I can learn to... adjust. Maybe it's like walking off a limp.”

At the next gust of wind, you let yourself edge closer to Niranye, turning so that your back is as much to the wind as hers. Tentatively, she presses her shoulder to yours. Then she knocks her boot against your leg.

“Finish this up, then. I can tell you while we walk. Neither of us needs to spend more time on this blasted ice heap than necessary.”

And, in fragments over meals and while walking, between your flashes and flinches, Niranye tells you:

“As you have obviously already heard, I was born on the Isle of Summerset. Alinor, they call it these days. Tch. This was in the late days of the Third Era: year 400, to be exact. Too late in the year to be part of all those centennial celebrations. Most parents counted babies born that year as a lucky omen, but not my parents.

“They had been planning to leave the Isles, you see. Even then, the tensions between the Isles and the rest of the Empire were evident. Certain fringe factions were becoming more prominent. Social divides started to solidify, and so on. My parents didn't like what it foretold.”

You frown down at the uncured fur you're working over a spear butt, trying to soften it from rawhide to something like leather. Even the glancing mention of the Thalmor makes you uneasy. This woman has been alive since the Thalmor came to power. She was _there_. What if...

“Oh, does that surprise you? That not every Altmer supported what our people became?” Niranye asks, and your stomach swoops. You weren't guarding your expression. You should _know_ better, but you... you must have relaxed, and... “Oh, don't grovel,” she sighs, waving away your stammering. “I know you did. Well, now you know.”

It takes a while to accept. The question of _What if she_ is _secretly working with the Thalmor_? re-occurs until, in a sudden half-dreaming moment, you realize that the voice sounds like Ulfric Stormcloak. What if every Altmer is an enemy, even the merchant who sells cookware and cheap jewelry? What if every Imperial is a cowardly traitor? What if every Dunmer is a promiscuous beggar?

Disgusted, you twist your mouth. Shame on you. (And on him.) That sort of thinking leads nowhere good, and you're sorry you ever entertained it. You can't let your pain take you down that path.

“Exile has always been the natural solution to malcontent among the Altmer. Usually it's not self-imposed, though. Or done with a twenty year-old child under the wing. In any case, my parents went to Cyrodiil, registered as political refugees, and found work in the civil service. The Empire runs on paperwork, as they say. Well. They say it in Cyrodiil, anyway.

“I found a second home in Bravil, in the Nibenay Valley. Nothing at all like Summerset, of course, but I came to love it. Children are so adaptable. I found ways to fit in despite being fresh off the boat. It's always been a skill of mine, I admit.”

“I envy you that.” You murmur it into the bundle of rabbit fur pillowed beneath your head. Even so, Niranye hears. Your offerings to the conversation are so few and tentative that she stops to listen. “I... I always wanted to fit in. You know.”

Being a mer among men, you mean. For all that she was the daughter of respectable administrators, growing up in a bustling if poor Imperial metropolis, and you were the son of barely settled nomads, born to labour and rural as cowspit before education put a varnish on you... yes, she knows what you mean. For the first time, you feel a thread of kinship for your guide: something other than desperation and necessity holding you two together.

The upper edge of the glacier gives way directly to granite hills: the scattered northern reaches of the Karmanthors. Where the rock is bare, there are deep striations from the countless tonnes of ice scraping slowly, slowly down to the sea. At the top of the first ridge, you spy a wooden post sunk into granite, a labour undertaken by strangers decades before to ensure that the wind-torn banner fluttering at its spire will be high and visible to anyone within range. Beneath the banner is a natural pass through the crags, leading north.

“Then there was the Oblivion Crisis, naturally. Can't forget that.

“I managed to adapt in the aftermath of that, too. Shocked my parents terribly, but I coped. What? No, it was over far too quickly for me to learn to fight _then_. But afterward, I made certain I knew how to protect myself. As I told you: I'm quite capable. Seeing what those Daedra could do to a body made me quite sure I'd never take up the sword professionally, though.”

From the sound of it, her life in Bravil was nearly idyllic, at least after the Imperial Legion finally got around to reinstating the local government that had been replaced by organized criminals in the wake of the Oblivion Crisis. Niranye speaks with fondness even of the gangs, the street brawls, the succession of benignly corrupt Watch captains. The fish markets and the constant barge travel up the Larsius River, public dances in the city square and long walks through the castle gardens. Imperial festivals by day and Altmeri dining customs by night; Trader's Tongue to her tutors, Nibenese to her friends, Altmeris to her parents.

“The Thalmor took that all away from me.” Niranye says it so abruptly that you freeze, not daring to finish reaching for the kettle. Her tone is as cold as the glacier.

“My parents were thrown out of their jobs immediately after the declaration of war. No warning, no consideration. We were all refugees from the Dominion, but what did it matter? That's the way of the world, I suppose.

“My parents were too proud and stubborn to accept it. They meant well, but it nearly got us all killed. In the time they spent fighting to get their jobs back, our house was mobbed three times. Other Altmer families were burned right out. Then the Dominion army was upon Bravil. The city was besieged and we were trapped, like everybody else.

“Sympathy alone saved us. One of my friends let us hide in her house, even during the Dominion's occupation. We didn't set foot outside that basement for four years.”

Four years in the darkness. Stone floors, no blankets, no light. Hunger. Cold. Four _years_.

You hold your tongue. What could you possibly say? Aside, that is, from _Do the nightmares ever stop_? Niranye's face is too fixed, too still, to entertain questions. Firelight shines off her eyes, making it impossible to see anything else in them. She's holding stillness like an anchor to prevent the past from crushing her down, as if she might hold herself aloof from the trauma still living in her bones.

Divines, is this what it's like from the other side of the hurting? If Niranye can make you feel this way, then you yourself must be a walking well of helplessness. Look what you've inflicted on Revyn. On Stormcloak, even. It never occurred to you that your pain might make others suffer beyond the inconvenience of your screaming and flinching.

Niranye doesn't want to talk about it. Thank Azura.

But that afternoon, when your faint goat track through the rock emerges on the broad, clear cobblestone of the Cold Road, she does laugh out loud and grab the hand that you flail at her in over-eager celebration. You grip her hand and shake it, and she keeps laughing.

In the distance there is a Hold guard in Winterhold white, keeping his lonely outpost, who waves greeting as enthusiastically as you and Niranye do.

“After the end of the War, my family fled Bravil. All the other refugees were going north, so we did as well. My parents were not too proud to beg, then, but it did no good. There was little sympathy for _Imperial_ refugees, let alone Altmer. It was all about being of service. And I managed.

“We ended up in Skyrim for sheer lack of anywhere else to go. The less said about those years, the better. It was endlessly depressing. You wouldn't care to hear it, and I don't want to whine.

“Eventually, we found opportunities. We made good, even if we had to split up to do it. My mother found work keeping records for the court wizard in Riften, and then at the College. My father went to the Merchants' Guild in Solitude. Made quite a name for himself introducing Imperial banking practices, too. I myself found work selling goods in Riften. I did so well at it that I moved around to several different cities, opening up new markets and finding new connections, before I settled in Windhelm. It was all just a matter of making the right friends, you see. Even among Nords who are so... traditionalist.

“And there you found me,” Niranye concludes, with a wry twist of her mouth. You're not quite sure what to make of that expression. She could easily be regretting that she contracted this journey as your guide; you've certainly given her cause for rue. You want to think, though, that the irony is for her situation: mer among men, so isolated that the company of a mad Dunmer might be a relief.

“So I did,” you agree. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

How can she not see? “Everything.”

On the Cold Road, spruce and fir reappear in sheltered niches, accompanied by sparse stands of snowberry and wolfwillow along the roadside. Niranye calls the latter silverbush and only knows it because the pebble-sized fruit contains stone-hard seeds used in traditional Nordic jewelry. Snowberry season isn't until Sun's Dawn, so the fat, tempting red cherries gleaming against the grey landscape are deceptive: the dreadfully sour fruit won't sweeten until it's been frozen and thawed repeatedly. Only the wolfwillow is ready to eat, its berries stripped from branches by the handful as you tramp past. Niranye grimaces at the dry, grainy flesh beneath leathery silver skins but eats all the same.

A morning, an afternoon, an evening. Two meals and twice as many cups of tea. Sleep. Nightmares. Sleep. Morning. And chuckled conversation beside the campfire at breakfast, which two weeks ago you thought could never happen.

The day you finally come around a shoulder of mountain to sight the College's towers rising into the blue, blue sky of the coast, you laugh out loud with relief. By your side, Niranye sighs. “ _Finally_.”

The two of you pick up speed together, boots slashing through the deep, dry snow that has drifted across the cobbles. Up ahead, the path wends down the foothills into the cluster of grey smudges that is Winterhold, invisible except for its chimney smoke. Otherwise, the capital city could be a scattering of boulders at the foot of the College.

There is one last hurdle before you reach the city. _You can do this, Lleros._

“Niranye. Listen, I had a thought...”

“What was that?”

“Sorry. I said I was thinking—”

She wheels about sharply, frowning. Your stomach flips sickeningly before you process that she's looking _past_ you, not _at_ you. “No, I thought I heard...”

This time, you hear the snow bear whuff at the same time as you see it rear up out of the drifts on its hind legs. For a moment it stands there, swaying. Instinct takes over and your hunter's brain takes scope of the animal: _male, fully grown, half again my height and six times my weight_.

“It's all right,” you say urgently, softly, having registered Niranye's flinch of shock out of the corner of your eye. One of your arms is already up to prevent her from bolting and startling the bear. City folk out in the wild are the worst danger to themselves. “They're not territorial. It's autumn, it should be well fed and—”

Black mouthparts and yellow fangs the length of your finger show as the bear bellows deafeningly.

“Fuck,” you utter.

Even as the bear thumps back to all fours and breaks into a lumbering sprint towards you, you stand your ground. There's no fleeing from a creature that can outrun a horse. Instead, you rip off your mitts, fling your pack to your feet, and tear open the flap. The bear is running towards you. The world has gone still and slow, crystallized under pressure like a diamond. Either you will get to your weapons in time, or you will die.

The scroll of Fireball unfurls like a war banner snapping in the wind. Almost before it has opened fully, you are shouting the familiar words of conjuring, forcing magicka into scribed runes that spark to life at its touch. “ _I summon and release thee_!”

The bear is charging. The vellum sucks magicka for what seems like eternity—one second, two seconds, as the bear gets closer and closer—and then the last of the spell's framework snaps into place. Your magicka coalesces into a core tight and dense enough to erupt through the barrier from Aetherius to Mundus in an explosion of white-hot flame.

The Fireball breaks over the bear's head and forequarters in a horrid wave. Your nerves thrill at the agonized roar that follows. Something in your skull echoes the scream, the stench of burning hair and flesh. But you have to—you have to...

The warble of another conjuration breaking the planes drags your mind back to the present moment. The bear flounders in the snow scarcely twenty feet from you, fur sizzling, still bellowing. Farther up the road, Niranye stands with her feet akimbo and her summoning staff thrust out in front of her. She's clearly terrified stiff, yet she's fumbling over her shoulder to pull a short spear from her pack with her free hand.

Niranye's fire atronach sweeps down on the bear. Now that it's distracted, you snatch up your pack and beat your own retreat.

Ten, twenty, thirty feet—that's far enough. You've never personally witnessed a fight between a flame atronach and a fully grown male snow bear, but you're willing to bet that the daedroth won't win. Not one that came out of a staff like Niranye's, and from a weak caster to boot. You need your bow out _now_.

It's buried down the side of your pack, wrapped in oilcloth and leather. Now you have _just_ enough distance from danger that your cold clarity cracks and fear snakes down your bones, making your hands fumble just a touch. You curse and yank the oilcloth open.

“Drals!” Niranye shouts. “Hurry up!”

The bear strikes the atronach across its chest. Four inch claws rip into the atronach's igneous plating and scatter chunks of flaming charcoal through the air. The drifts are quickly becoming a sea of smoke and steam and hissing coals.

“I'm—” The loop of waxed string slips off the nock twice before you manage to secure it. “I'm trying!” You jam the bow's strung limb against your left foot, keeping enough tension on the string that it doesn't slip loose. Step over—brace the bow against your right thigh—

It has been so long since you strung this great weapon. The ebony may as well be steel for all that it wants to bend. Every quarter inch of bend in the bow is a struggle, and still the sounds of animal fury echo against the mountains. Maybe the Winterhold guard will hear and come running. Kyne, _please_.

The string slips into place. Dig an arrow out of the quiver in your pack: white fletching, which means it's a broadhead for game hunting. Nock, draw— _shit_ , you aren't wearing a thumb ring, haven't been able to replace the one stolen from you by the Thalmor, and the string cuts into your thumb— _draw_ , muscles screaming... release.

The bow makes no sound. The string zips. The bear wheezes.

One arrow in its chest. In a lung.

It thumps down onto four paws. Oh, not an ideal position: you never want to be shooting at a bear facing you dead on. But your shot was good. You remember, your _body_ remembers that you are twenty-five years a hunter, and you are not afraid anymore. You know how this ends. Nock. Dr—

Your hand spasms and the arrow spins off the string, and just like that the fear is back again. Everything falls apart. _Useless_. Down the road Niranye shouts your name, warning and afraid. Your hand trembles, but your have no choice but to fumble for another arrow, praying you can manage the shot.

Niranye is too far away, her spear all wrong for bear hunting—but even if she was ready to fight, you _cannot_ put her in danger again.

Nock. _Draw_ until your arm screams. Aim into the meat of its chest, base of the throat, above the sternum. Release.

Quiet as anything, the bear staggers two steps forward and folds into the snow.

At some point, Niranye's atronach crumbled into ash, leaving just the two of you staring at the great shaggy body. You draw a deep breath, wipe cold sweat off your face. Unstring your bow. Shake out the rigid tension of your spine.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Remember: you are a hunter.

Kneeling beside the snow bear's great bulk, you put both hands on its chest. “Kyne, mother of men and beasts, praise to your bounty. I take this creature from your care into my own. _Lof vid Kaan, fram sky vid kørst vid sky.”_

At the sound of Niranye's steps squeaking through the snow, you say more loudly, “Can't imagine why it attacked us like that.”

“I don't really _care_ ,” Niranye says. “Y'ffre protect me. At least we're nearly to Winterhold.”

You squint down the road. “Close enough to haul the carcass.”

“You're not serious.”

Anxious as you are to reach the city, and Enthir, and your money, there are some principles which are inviolable. One does _not_ abandon a fresh kill, and especially not within walking distance of a city. “I'm not leaving it to rot,” you say, offended. Then, remembering that a bear six times your weight will take multiple trips to carry alone, you wheedle, “Besides, there might be a bounty if it's always been this aggressive. And you know the pelt is worth money. Help me drag it and I'll split the coin.”

Niranye huffs, but it's relenting. “You can butcher it yourself. Don't think I'm standing around in that smell, either.”

Pleased despite the smell, you gut the bear. The sheer size of the beast is a hindrance, as is your second-hand dagger, so far from the beautiful bone-handled skinning knife the Thalmor took from you. It's hard, bloody work; you do it bare-armed despite the cold. At least the inside of the beast's chest keeps you warm up to your elbows.

“ _Lof vid Kaan_ ,” you say again when you've finished. With one gory hand, you smear blood across your mouth and chin, between the red lines of war paint that frame your lips. This turns Nose-of-Fox into Wolfmaw, the design that Elrindir always wore when prey was rare. A hunter's blessing that even an elf will wear.

Also: a paint design that covers even more of your face. You cannot forget that you are about to walk into a city whose people knew you as a student and a healer for seven years.

“Gods, what a stench,” Niranye says as you tramp over to where she's seated on a rock. “You're—oh. Well. That is... _interesting_.” She peers at your face with a wince; you grin, teeth white amidst the blood, to see her grimace. “I don't care to comment. Drals, there's something I need to say before we get to Winterhold.”

“The Thalmor,” you guess.

“...Yes. The Thalmor at the College. I suppose I don't need to beat around the bush with you.”

Not when it comes to your common enemy. From what you've gathered and guessed of Niranye's past, you finally feel secure in . “I was trying to bring this up before the bear attacked us.”

Niranye sighs and rubs her forehead. There's a pinch of tension there that doesn't go away. “I don't need to tell you that it's best we stay far away from any Dominion agent, then. I'm an exile and a dissenter. They would kill me as fast as you.”

“Faster.” Not the least bit amused, you bare your teeth in another grin. “They might want me alive still.”

It's dangerous, giving away even that. But all this time, you have conspicuously told Niranye nothing even as she told you everything. She needs to trust you in return.

Niranye gives you a strained smile. “Call me Irinwe, then. And you?”

“Drals.”

Her careful expression shifts only a little when she realizes that you have been lying to her all along. Surely she can hardly blame you, though. With a quirk of her mouth, she says, “Indeed. I was thinking... shall we be a married couple?”

Amusement takes you so by surprise that you snort. It hasn't escaped you that you and Niranye will both be in _desperate_ trouble if you give the Thalmor cause to look twice at you, but all the same a cover story is absurd. This sort of subterfuge is _far_ beyond your experience. Hopefully Niranye is much better at it than you.

You wave the coil of rope in your hand. “Come and help me with the bear, then, dear. Darling?”

“ _No_ pet names. 'Dear' if you _must_ forget my name.”

As you bind the bear's hind paws, you suggest, “You should do most of the talking in town. Less chance of us contradicting each other if I'm quiet.” Less chance of anyone recognizing your voice, more like. Dagur and Haran at the Frozen Hearth know all the College students who come down for drinks and a change of scenery. What's more, Restoration students like you were always more welcome than anyone else, even if only grudgingly, to treat illnesses and injuries. Too many people know you. But stories that might lead Niranye to your _real_ identity are still more than you can stand to give.

“And how shall we explain your silence?”

“Just tell them I'm... what's the word? Retiring. Not fond of strangers.”

“Ah,” Niranye says knowingly. “Yet another dark elf isolationist. Of course. Yet I am mer enough that you deigned to marry me.”

The insult surprises you. In that moment, it doesn't matter that you always found your father's reticence and avoidance of the neighbours frustrating, that you never liked how your mother curled her lip at your participation in Nordic customs. You still understand why they clung to their own ways and avoided others. Why the Dunmer of Windhelm do the same. “I'm sorry? What's wrong with keeping to yourself?”

Niranye shakes her head. “It's proud and naive, and it will never do any good.” Seeing you open your mouth again, she says, “Oh, Drals, _please_ don't ruin my good opinion of you. We were getting along so well.”

It's better you don't fight right before heading into Winterhold. And _remember_ , you have been trying to control your sudden temper. Unable to let the anger pass entirely unvented, you settle for saying caustically, “I'll be the silent one, then, shall I?” and throw one end of the rope at her. “Darling.”

It's hard to hang on to the anger when you have to throw your back into the rope shoulder to shoulder with Niranye, though. By the time you two have dragged the snow bear onto the Cold Road, leaving its innards glistening in the snow, you're embarrassed by your words. “I'm sorry,” you mutter. “That was rude of me.”

If it escapes Niranye that you're not apologizing for thinking her wrong, she doesn't show it. “Never mind. Better we focus on what's ahead.”

“The Thalmor,” you say.

“No,” Niranye says, surprisingly. She smiles. “ _Money_.”

Divines, she's right. The money Enthir owes you. And from there, you can pay Tethyls to fix your hand. You can get better.

This close to Winterhold, it almost feels safe to _hope_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, it's the chapter that would not _end_. For all that it's over 10,000 words long, I only managed to cover about 50% of the content that was planned for the draft. But it's already super late as is, so... ENJOY.
> 
> Also, everybody please thank [Chamerion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamerion) for helping me to kick this chapter into shape! Without that help, I'd still be half-done and the chapter would be a mess. Please consider also leaving a review on one of Chamerion's own stories as thanks. You definitely won't regret reading them!


	13. Lleros (10)

The first person to meet you on the road into the city is a guard. Axe drawn, he steps peeringly through the blowing snow until he catches sight of Niranye and you, trudging down the road with the bear dragging behind you. You two stagger to a stop, relieved momentarily of the searing ache of the ropes over your shoulders.

“Ah, travellers,” the guard says, with a higher voice than you expected. A woman, then; your mistake. It's hard to tell beneath the armour and the helmet. “I thought I heard something.”

“It gave us quite a fright,” Niranye says, more sweetly than you had expected. “It was little trouble for my Drals, however.”

The guard nudges the bear with her boot. “Kyne's breath, that's a big creature.”

“Oh, yes,” Niranye sighs, and makes a show of stretching her back. “Guardswoman, I'm so sorry to trouble you, but... I don't suppose you could help us take it to the nearest butcher? It's been such a long journey. I don't imagine it would feel so heavy to you.”

“It's no trouble at all,” the guard drawls, and all but swaggers over. Niranye surrenders her end of the rope with a sugary smile, leaving you to scowl and put your back into the burden again beside the guard. Well, you suppose you can't blame her for wanting out of the effort.

“Hunters, then, are you?” asks the guard, as you pass Winterhold's threshold. The city's old stone gate remains, a solid archway and flanking towers, but little else. Most of the walls have fallen over or been scavenged for building materials.

“Drals is,” Niranye says. The guard barely gives you a glance, which suits you fine; you keep your head down against the curious stares of Winterhold's folk come to see this rare interruption. “I make my living by scribing and illuminating.”

“You've got clever fingers, then,” the guard says. Niranye outright laughs. Mara's mercy, they _are_ flirting.

The gutted bear leaves a bloody track all the way down the centre of Winterhold's main thoroughfare—its only thoroughfare, really—until you reach Birna’s Oddments. The guard holds the store's door open for Niranye, who sweeps in looking tremendously pleased with herself. Rolling your eyes, you fold your cloak around yourself and lean against a sheltering wall to wait until she has finished haggling.

Birna pokes her head out the door once to size up the carcass. A few other guards come over to prod the bear and make desultory comments. True to your persona, you respond to their bored inquiries with a cold stare. Scoffing, they wander off again.

“A pleasure doing business with you,” Niranye is saying as she steps back into the street. “To the inn with us, now. At _last_.”

“The Frozen Hearth's right across the street,” the guard says, and offers Niranye her elbow. “Not near as cold as the name says. Hot baths and good beds all 'round.”

“What about this?” you ask, since they seem to have forgotten the massive carcass lying in the street.

“Leave it,” Niranye says carelessly, over her shoulder. “Birna will have someone skin it. She's bought the meat but not the fur, since you burned it so. I told her you'd take the hide as your share.”

You're not precisely _offended_ , since you've no real attachment to Niranye; she can flirt with whomever she likes. Or whomever she can get to do her favors, as it seems. That's fair enough. It's just that her spending the night in another woman's bed rather calls into question the story that you're her husband.

That, and you're annoyed Niranye's leaving you with just the singed bearskin for your cut of the kill. That was _not_ the bargain.

Contrary to its name, the Frozen Hearth has four fireplaces, and they're all lit, though only the one nearest the bar is stoked high enough to cook on. The warmth of the hall is so welcome that you groan out loud with relief. Pleased that Niranye has to do the negotiating for a room, you stand in front of the nearest fireplace and rub feeling back into your nose.

“Two rooms?” Dagur is asking.

“Just one,” Niranye says. “I will share with my husband, of course.”

The guard unsubtly steps back from her. You snort.

“Oh, don't look at me like that,” murmurs Niranye, when the two of you have slipped into your rented room. Her guard is still standing in the hall, looking embarrassed and bewildered by turns at being so abruptly divested of the woman she thought she had well in hand. “Surely you've seen wives flirt in front of their husbands before.”

“It just doesn't seem productive.”

“It was productive for me.”

You roll your eyes. “Don't expect me to stage a jealous fit.”

“ _Please_ don't.”

“Yes, darling.”

While Niranye strips out of her ice-crusted travel gear, you unroll the patchwork curtain of hides from the shelf and hang it from the nails sticking out above the door. Inns rarely have proper doors for the same reason that houses do: it helps warm air circulate and it saves wasting valuable iron on hinges. At the moment, you'd much prefer privacy to a little extra warmth.

“Have I got time for a bath before you find your contact?”

“I think so,” you say. “I didn't see him out there.”

Muttering sarcastic praise, Niranye ducks out of the room to arrange for hot water.

While she bathes, you make an excuse of wanting ale and settle by an empty hearth in the hall. You might be pretending to be wed, but you're not even going to _suggest_ to Niranye that you take the act so far as to remain in the room with her while she's nude. You doubt she has any more interest in that than you.

You hunch over your mug and scowl and don't make eye contact, and that keeps interested gossips away. Even in a place as boring and isolated as Winterhold, most people think better of bothering an irritable elf. While they're avoiding you, you take the opportunity to scan the hall more carefully.

There are familiar faces here, of course. Malur, Korir's court mage without a drop of actual talent. Ranmir, who clearly hasn't begun to drink any less since you were last here. Guards off their shifts have claimed the other fireplace near the bar for their own; they're the source of the loudest chatter. A few painted Nords dressed in fur, eating stew, are clearly hunters passing through. No Enthir.

You take a deep breath and settle your anxious knee. You may have to wait a few days before he decides to come down to the inn for a drink. That's fine. You've survived weeks broken; you can wait a little longer in relative comfort.

The plan: Find Enthir. Get your money or your jewelry, whichever he has. Return to Windhelm. Pay Tethyls. Fix your hand. Then...

 _Then_ what? Your stomach twists. You've been avoiding that thought, keeping your eyes down to the most immediate problem. If you look beyond your damaged hand, the future yawns like the Void itself: darkness and lostness and Alduin, _Alduin_ , bane of kings, death of men, World-Eater woken and walking once again to turn the Wheel one last time, and in the face of it only _you_. You...

“I'm done,” Niranye murmurs, sinking into a chair beside you.

Startled from one fear into another by Elenwen's accent, you flinch violently. At the last moment, you manage to turn the movement into standing up instead. The last thing you want to do is panic in front of all these people. Giving Niranye a rough squeeze on the shoulder—she's wincing in apology for her mistake, at least—you go to wash. If you have to bathe kneeling outside the basin and keeping the water from running over your face, well, the curtain's across the door and that's your business.

 

* * *

 

Sunset light drops low enough to slant through the Frozen Hearth's high western windows. The supper hour brings more locals and Birna's assistant from the store with a haunch of fresh bruin for Dagur and the charred hide for you. Niranye tosses the hide past the curtain at you and, back at the fire, glancingly makes it known that she's responsible for the upcoming meal of roast bear. The locals give her a murmuring of welcome.

Much as you'd love to leave her to buttering everyone up, you have to emerge from hiding. “Need a favour,” you tell Dagur at the bar gruffly. “Haven't got a fleshing knife. Woman lost it packing up camp a few weeks ago.” You jerk your chin at Niranye. Let there be a few marital troubles to explain the distance between Irinwe and Drals. “Got one I could use?”

The four copper pennies you drop on the bar, unasked for, lessen the request. From beneath the bar top, Dagur hunts up a heavy iron bar with one bevelled edge, both ends wrapped in old rags for grip. It's a crude fleshing knife, probably worth more as ore, but effective all the same.

You grunt. “Could give you good silver for this,” you offer, though you don't really want to buy it. It's just in character that a hunter missing such a crucial piece of equipment should want a replacement.

“Not a chance,” Dagur says, as you'd expected. “Closest smithy to here is Windhelm.” You grimace; Dagur takes it for a dark elf's usual objection to Ulfric Stormcloak's city. “Aye, well. We've got plenty of hunters camping around here. See if they've got one to sell. Need salt for the hide as well, I take it?”

Dagur scoops up salt from a barrel by the bowlful: three of them, heaping with soft grey powder and smelling like the ocean's breath. All that costs mere pennies.

In addition to wild game, salt is the other thing that Winterhold has aplenty: they refine it here, turning seawater into dust down in refineries converted from the houses left standing closest to the cliff's edge. Steam from the boilers powers a winch and bucket chain of bastardized Dwemer parts that cranks water up from the sea below.

There are refineries in Solitude and Dawnstar as well, of course, and every village within miles of the sea makes its own salt, but Winterhold is Skyrim's biggest salt producer. Though Korir might grind his teeth to the pulp, his city owes that to the Mages' College. The College attracted the Dwemer scholar who built the steam-powered works many decades ago, and the College still supplies the fire salts and enchanted kettles and rune-scribed hearthstones that let the refineries stoke their furnaces with mere handfuls of coal and dried driftwood. Fuel is the limiting factor, especially in a land as rocky and barren as Winterhold. The people here might be wary of mages, might even be hateful, but they're still willing to look the other way and keep their hands out for the tools they need to maintain what little economy their home has.

Hidden back away in your room, you drape the bearskin fur down over a bench and sit crosslegged on the floor. The boards are stained from the efforts of hunters who have done their work here before you. Both hands on the bar, you set its bevelled edge to the wet skin and scrape, scrape, scrape, peeling away bits of flesh and clinging pink membrane until all that remains is clean white hide.

Your amulet of Kynareth thumps against your chest every time you lean back from a stroke. Your back aches. Your fingers scream. But there's a rhythm to the work and your damaged hand is good and quiet for the time being. You lose yourself in the pain and find, within it, the meditative peace of Kyne's ceremony.

Absently humming a song you've heard Elrindir sing a hundred times, you lay the hide out flat and powder it with great drifts of dove-grey salt. Wet salt and the iron bar—smells like blood. Kyne's arts are not bloodless ones. You were raised to hunt and kill; you know it's not easy to make a living out of death, but you also know how to honor the necessary sacrifice of lives. Bears. Bandits. That which must die to keep others alive. _Lof vid Kaan_.

 _What are you doing, Lleros_?

Surviving. One day at a time. Every day a little stronger. The arts of repairing that which has healed badly are bloody, but well you know bloody work. Praise to Kyne, praise to Azura, praise to Effra. You are guided.

One day at a time.

 

* * *

 

Niranye slides you the occasional squinting glance when you sit down to supper at her side, suspicious of your willing presence in the common hall but unable to say anything while she's still warmly gossiping her way into the locals' affections. You pat her hand once and turn your attention to supper, letting the dull roar of the taproom wash over your new-found peace.

It's the best meal you've had in weeks of travel: a bowl heaped with chunks of bear meat carved from the haunch, over a bed of onion and potato and garlic cloves roasted whole in the pan beneath the dripping spit. The chunk of dense dark rye bread at the very bottom of the bowl is soaked with the juices of everything above. You buy a second round and eat with your fingers: village manners, like everybody else. Everyone around you keeps calling for ale and Haran keeps your mug full along with theirs. It's a deep nutty homebrew with thick foam that sits heavy at your back teeth in the most satisfying way.

A storm picks up outside: a small thing, scarcely notable in this northern coastal town. Wind keens past the eaves but the timbers are strong and the hall is warm to its rafters. What seems like every person in Winterhold has gathered to the warmth of their common presence in a city where isolation is so very cold.

Somebody starts to sing—or rather, there have always been snatches of song ongoing, but somebody with a strong enough voice starts up in a lulling moment, and the crowd is in a mood to listen. The chant is familiar, traditional, sung in slanting accent and scattered with archaic words. By the distant look in Niranye's eye, she doesn't understand or recognize the lyrics, and she's not listening. The reminder catches you a breath away from joining in that you, Drals Vedran, shouldn't know or care for the words to a Nordic ceremonial. When half a hundred voices gradually pick up the words of another song, you have to content yourself with humming very softly and closing your eyes to sink into the warmth.

You are satisfied. Ale and food and that new-found core of peace keep you steady enough to ease into bed beside Niranye later on without so much as a hiccup of anxiety. “Move over,” you murmur, and climb in fully clothed with your back to her.

She sighs and relaxes into your blunt establishment of boundaries, satisfied that she won't have to force up her own boundaries against you. You're pleased to put her at ease. You know it's not an easy thing to be wary of another person's desire.

Maybe that's why, when you wake up trembling and terrified with Niranye's hand on your shoulder, she doesn't just shake you awake and pull away like she did all those night in the tent. Long fingers squeezing tight around your bicep, she whispers, “Drals. Drals, shh. Shhhh-shhh,” until you manage to uncoil the terrified clench of your bones. She slides her arm over your waist, holding you tentatively and then more securely as you bury your face in the pillow and cry out the fear.

It leaves you muzzy and aching at the eye sockets, as if the darkness was pressing in too hard on your tender eyes. Still, with Niranye's arm over you, the sexless comfort of her ankles tangled with yours, you manage to settle for sleep again. After nightmares, that's a rarity.

She once spent four years in the darkness of a basement in a city besieged, you recall. Stone floors, no blankets, no light. Hunger. Cold. Four _years_.

You still haven't asked her if the nightmares ever go away. From the silent, unjudging sympathy of Niranye's embrace, you think you know the answer.

That's all right. You are the both of you surviving.

 

* * *

 

Enthir shows up at the Frozen Hearth on the third day. You've spent much of that time confined to your room, contentment wearing off hour by hour: hard to hold onto without work to keep the feeling fresh. When you finally pick up the sound of Enthir's oily drawl greeting Nelacar with a few practiced barbs, you let out a breath you hadn't known you were holding.

Enthir looks up when you slide onto the bench beside him, bemused as to why a stranger is sitting down so near to him. With your hood up and your face painted, he doesn't recognize a fellow pupil of seven years. _Good_.

“I hear you're a man who knows how to get things,” you murmur.

“You heard right.” Enthir shifts a few inches farther away. “But I didn't know I was known. Who sent you my way?”

“Oh, nobody. We've met before.” You lean in and push your hood back slightly. You only hope his reaction won't be too...

But Enthir only takes a sip of his drink, using the excuse to lean back even farther. His smile is starting to look strained. “Sorry, can't... can't say that I recognize you.”

A thread of anxiety squirms through your stomach. Surely your paint isn't _that_ excellent of a disguise. Is he joking? Is he trying to warn you not to reveal yourself?

“Listen,” Enthir says, fiddling with the glass trinket around his neck, “if you came from Frey, you can just  go right back. And ditch the cloak. Hooded and mysterious is far too obvious.”

“Stop trying to charm me,” you snap—quietly, though—keeping your eyes off his shiny trinket with a force of will. “ _Enthir_. It's me. It's—it's... Lleros.”

All the colour leaves his face. Whoever he _thought_ you were, the reality is evidently much worse, and now you're frightened of whatever is frightening him. “Of course!” he says loudly, suddenly jovial in a way that utterly contradicts his expression. “My little shop is right downstairs, if you'd like to come with me!”

It's all you can do to keep up with Enthir as he makes a beeline into the cellar. Down there, amidst the barrels and crates and vats of Haran's home-brewed beer, is the little room that Enthir rents for his mercantile side-dealings with the locals. You and the other College students always genially suspected him of using it for some other, shadier work as well, since he never invited anyone in. Opinions were split as to whether he was summoning Daedra or selling skooma or possibly even selling his bed. (Anything for a coin, that Enthir—right?) The prurience of the gossip was really all that mattered to most students, since you were all bored and simultaneously too isolated and too cooped up.

Now, as Enthir ushers you past the threshold and drops the bar into place, you finally see that some of the rumours must have been true after all. He flicks his fingers, mutters under his breath, and the doorknob melts invisible. Complex skeins of runework flicker to life on the flagstones: wards far beyond your realm of knowledge. And above the door...

There's no reason any innocent, ordinary merchant needs a daedroth bound into the capstone of his doorway, is all. And if he'd merely meant to show off his arcane knowledge, then surely he'd have enchanted the door of his bedroom at the College. A glowing black lintel would have worked wonders to keep J'zargo away from the challenge of pilfering Enthir's questionably-gotten goods.

Enthir doesn't look at you until the last ward is in place. He gives the door one last anxious stare, as if expecting it to suddenly burst in, then turns to you. The whole thing is deeply reminiscent of Revyn barring his door on the day you walked back into his shop. You _do_ bring trouble with you, don't you, Lleros?

“They looked for me, didn't they,” you rasp, unable to make your throat work above a whisper.

“Did they ever,” Enthir groans. He shakes his head in disbelief, still staring at you. _Now_ he takes in every inch of your face. “Ancano was furious. They locked us up, Lleros! They locked us in rooms and they asked and asked until— I've never heard the Archmage shout like that. I thought he was going to murder Ancano right there and you know what, we'd have done it. They brought reinforcements, other Justiciars, like we were some common criminals they could interrogate! Even though the Archmage said no. I thought we really were going to kill them all. As if the whole College of mages couldn't make a few bodies disappear for good. 'I'm _sorry_ , sir, but they never arrived! Dragons everywhere, these days—or were they travelling when that storm hit?'”

No doubt he's shaken, but the terror of his initial reaction has faded to mere remembered fear. What remains is mostly the anger of a mage unaccustomed to being given orders, insulted by the Thalmor's intrusive, condescending observance. While you and Brelyna had been properly afraid of Ancano, Enthir and Faralda and the College's other older students had been masters of that insulted arrogance. Even Master Colette had seemed more annoyed at Ancano than anything, though you were quite sure that she and the other Masters had been under orders from the Archmage to be political and polite.

“Colette was furious,” Enthir adds, as if he knows what you're thinking. “Ancano made her cry. He still makes these _comments_ at her in the halls. Since you were her student and all...”

Your stomach drops; rage replaces fear in an instant. Master Colette—prickly, anxious, neurotic Master Colette, who would complain for days over a student's perceived disrespect but work her fingers to the bone for weeks nursing him through the injuries of an experimental spell gone horribly wrong—who probably would still have healed any Justiciar who came to her wounded—and Ancano made her _cry_?

“What are you _doing_ here?” Enthir demands. “Ancano comes down here sometimes, you know! He gets monthly dispatches in the mail, and the messengers hang about for days like we don't all know they're spying in town! Are you _trying_ to get caught?”

“Well, I didn't come for your company!” you snap, abruptly nettled. You didn't spend two weeks climbing over a glacier to be lectured as if all your struggles to survive amount to the foolishness of a child playing games. You shove back your hood, set your chin, ball up your fists and glare with every ounce of strength you can summon. You will not be told _no_ again so close to success. “You owe me money, and I'm not leaving until I get it.”

Enthir lets out a disbelieving breath. “Business, is it?” he says unsteadily. “Business.” Then he starts to laugh, shaking his head. “All right, then. Business it is. Come and have a drink.”

You let the anger ebb back, shuddering. _Success_. “Gods, yes.”

“I'm glad you're all right,” Enthir adds unexpectedly, and pops the cork from a dusty bottle out of a basket on the floor. “I am. We were all hoping for you, you know.”

He's never been a friend of yours. He wasn't even a classmate, since his specialization in Conjuration kept him well out of the Restoration seminars. He's older than you in a way that he likes to rub in, and crueler than you like to tolerate, and inclined to the sort of cutthroat deal-making that mother taught you to avoid. But when Enthir puts down your cup of wine and toasts you with his, you really do believe that he means it. You don't know whether it's because he wants _you_ to survive, or because he just wants _somebody_ to defy the Thalmor. Either way, you gulp your wine with a hot ember of embarrassed pleasure in your chest.

Enthir's business ledger is a heavy and forbidding thing, a book that makes students at the College cringe when Enthir brings it 'round to call in his debts. Right now, though, it contains sums that make your heart climb higher and higher as Enthir tracks down record after record of sales he made on your behalf. From the look of it, almost all of the jewelry you gave him those months ago has been sold, and the coin has been waiting for you.

“I'll need your signature here,” Enthir says, when he has checked his sums twice, and makes you put your fingerprint in ink beside every sale receipt in the ledger. He's fussy about paperwork, mostly because he makes a lot of money on unfair deals that can't be annulled on technicalities. But then, you'd be fussy, too, if you had to sign away seven and a half thousand septims.

Seven and a half _thousand_ septims. Azura, don't let this be a dream. You are _floating_.

“You're lucky I'm so honest,” he tells you, blotting the ledger. “That garnet crown you sold me turned out to be full of _rubies_. And I had some of the pieces appraised because I had a feeling about them, and it turns out that anything with the Wolf Queen's treasury seal on it is worth far more than its weight in gold. I hope you remember what tomb you pulled those out of, because if I were you, I'd go back there.”

“As if you didn't make a profit on them, too,” you needle, too relieved to snipe at his so-called honesty. You'd pray every day for Enthir's health and life and financial success if he asked you to. (And he would, if he knew how much that money meant to you, never mind that you shouldn't owe him anything for giving you gold that was already yours.)

“I _did_ ,” Enthir sighs, tired and greatly satiated. “A pleasure doing business with you, my friend.”

And then there is wine, and wine, and wine.

At first you drink for sheer joy, tapping your glass to Enthir's in celebration of a good deal. Then the Heiroc White gets to your head, and when Enthir toasts your success in evading the Thalmor, you have the bottle-bravery to toast along with him.

(“To Ancano falling off the bridge!” he says at one point in the night. “To her head on a _stick_ ,” you say in return—or you think you say—you don't quite remember—but either way Enthir doesn't inquire whose head or what stick, just takes the excuse to drain his glass, snickering.)

He is marvelously full of gossip, the way almost every College student is, and you're the perfect audience in that you know all the people he's talking about and you are _hungry_ for news of what feels like a past life. Enthir takes rather more glee than you in tales about people hexing their hair off or getting caught smuggling moon sugar, but you merely purse your lips and prod him for another story.

“I never thought I'd miss you little apprentices, but I do,” he sighs, slopping himself a fresh pour of white wine in a cup already half full of red. “The new lot are just intolerable. Did I tell you, there's this jumped up little Colovian arsehole who spends half his days out practicing illusions on the wildlife. And then he wonders why the locals hate us when he's cast Frenzy on half the bears in the Hold—”

“That's why!” you burst out. “It's _autumn_ , they should be fat and sleepy, not—not running around attacking everything in sight.”

“Prick,” Enthir agrees. “Ugh. What vintage is this...?”

“Vintage,” you mutter sardonically. “I hope a bear bites him. Just to teach him. Nothing lethal, just...”

“To arseholes getting bitten by a bear!” He drinks and then makes an irate face. “Bitten somewhere right tender, I hope. It's half his fault that Master Tolfdir put the Saarthal excavation on hold, you know. And your fault, too.”

“What?”

“There aren't enough clever apprentices around to—to justify keeping the excavation open with nobody to work it, and such. You left. Cassius doesn't know half as much as he thinks he does. We journeymen have research going in there, of course, but without you apprentices to haul rock for us...”

“What about Brelyna and Onmund? And 'Zargo?”

“What? Oh, he's gone. They're all gone.” Enthir waves a dismissive hand.

Even as cheerfully drunk as you are, this is terrible news. For a moment you can't process it. In your confusion, the first explanation that occurs to you is that somehow Ancano killed them for being your friends.

Enthir finally catches sight of your stricken face. “Oh, you don't know!” he says, thrilled to have come up with another bit of gossip. “Of course, you'd gone home before then. It was _terrible_.” He's taking great pleasure in it, though. “It took Master Ervine three days to find them in the Midden. They'd gone and summoned a _daedra_.”

“A what?” you say faintly. Daedra summoning is not as bad as death, but from the sounds of it, they weren't trying to conjure up any low-level atronach.

“Listen—you know that chest in the library...?”

You spend a good long while cursing J'zargo's sticky fingers and insatiable curiosity about what the Masters had deemed dangerous enough to lock away, and then Brelyna and Onmund's apparent lack of brains in going along with J'zargo's determination to finish summoning whatever sealed daedroth had killed the last set of students stupid enough to try. Onmund, you know, would have been easily dragged into it by his refusal to be outdone in any way by J'zargo—but Brelyna? She was your friend for years before the other two came along, and she might have been a few decades younger but she was always so clever that you never felt old. You thought she had more sense than that!

“I would have stopped them,” you say furiously, and Enthir nods along and crows, “I know! That's all the Masters could say afterwards, was 'Lleros would have stopped them, he had a good head on his shoulders, why can't you be more like Lleros.' And then they got kicked out, obviously.”

Seeing your despair, Enthir pours another sloppy cup and pushes it at you. “Come on, they might come back,” he says. “Eventually. It was only a conditional expulsion. Everybody gets kicked out some time or another. They'll find whatever books they got sent after and get right back in.”

You drink that cup of wine morosely, because you're upset, and then you drink another one because—well, because you've had rather a lot by then.

“To your stupid friends,” Enthir says, attempting to make you stop moping, so you drink that cup, too, and let him talk at you and snicker along. The room woozes. Your hand spasms and you drop a bottle but it's empty and Enthir takes your hand, morbidly fascinated; you can't recall what he asks. Light flashes in your eyes. And... then...?

Then somebody is knocking on the door, and you are very concerned that they're going to get hurt by Enthir's wards. You try to tell him so. He's already answering the door, and it's Haran saying that Mistress Irinwe was looking for her husband, was he here, he'd been gone for so long, so Enthir pours you into her arms, saying, “Sorry, sorry about that,” between giggles, which makes you laugh also, but Niranye does not laugh at all when she has to help Haran pull you up the cellar stairs, and somebody in the dark rooms upstairs yells at you to shut up it's blacker than Dagon's ass crack and Niranye won't talk to you which is upsetting and you...?

You sleep.

 

* * *

 

The hangover is just—appalling. Niranye is nowhere to be seen and the bedside pitcher is dry. You vomit rather a lot and nurse the headache as best you can with minor spells that can't cure every sinew in your body crying out for water. _The only cure for a hangover is water beforehand_ , Colette always said to miserable inquirers, without mercy in this singular instance. _No cure for stupidity, unfortunately_.

Memories of the previous night are piecemeal and vaguely nauseating. What did you spend so long talking about? You scarcely knew him. What did you tell him—anything? You can't recall anything particular that he did or said that should be so upsetting, but all the same you feel _used_. Wrung out like a rag.

To add insult to injury, by the time you feel up to emerging for a very late supper, you have been firmly cast in gossip as Irinwe's incurable lush of a husband. It's genuinely wounding how many near-strangers are willing to take her side in a fight over what is, as far as they have seen, a one-time event. Mortified, you buy your meal and flee back to your room. The smashed potatoes and braised bear shortribs, sticky-sweet and crackling off the bone in tender sauced shreds, don't taste nearly as good eaten alone and with a gut already full of humiliation.

The Frozen Hearth's evening crowd has emptied out by the time Niranye finally returns to the room. You cover your aching eyes against the sudden shaft of light and roll over in bed, groaning.

“I _do_ hope that was worth it,” Niranye says, sickly sweet, sitting on the edge of the bed to unlace her boots. “Although I've been working sympathy from it all day.”

Ashamed, you murmur, “We can leave whenever you've finished your business.”

On the wall, you see the dim shadow of Niranye throwing her overdress across the back of a chair. Then she climbs into bed behind you, her skirts knotted around her waist to keep them from tangling in the night. She keeps her feet pointedly clear of yours.

“How much did you get, then?”

“...What?”

“How much _gold_ did you get. Tell me it's at least enough to pay me.”

“I didn't... it was just a friendly drink. Why would he owe me money?”

There's a long silence before Niranye sits bolt upright, tearing the covers from your shoulders. “Sit up,” she snaps, at your complaint. “Drals, look at me. Honestly, what could you have been doing with Enthir that _wasn't_ business? He's not the sociable kind.”

“Enthir,” you say. “That's his name. I couldn't remember. You know him?”

“Do I know—” She grabs your chin. You balk from the sudden touch. Niranye's eyes are piercing enough to quell the question on your tongue. “ _Look_ at me. Yes, I know him. He's the man I came to see. I didn't know _you_ knew him. I wasn’t expecting Haran to tell me the College elf had come down, but he was already occupied with my husband! Oh, they'd been at it for hours, and it was funny, I'd never said my husband was anything but a hunter—what business did he have with a mage-merchant? I told her it was just you wanting some respectable elfish company.” Niranye stares into your eyes as if she's searching for something. “Drals, have you got your money or not?”

Money. Yes... that's why you came here, isn't it? How could it slip your mind that you need gold to... to pay Tethyls, because your hand... and Enthir owed you...

“Bastard,” Niranye whispers, as comprehension dawns on your face. You're scrubbing at your eyes even as she clambers out of bed and rummages in her pack. “Make a light,” she says, holding something out toward you.

You spark up a tiny Candlelight on your fingertip, pinprick-small and bright as the sun. The light alone is enough to send stabbing pains through your skull, but Niranye grabs your chin again and angles the little tin container she came up with, flashing white spots of light into your eyes.

_(Enthir fiddles with the glass trinket around his neck)_

You slam your fist into the bedpost, the first target you spot, until pain overrides your fury. “I'm going to kill him,” you growl, when you finally regain enough control to keep your voice down.

“Don't,” Niranye says, though her voice is cool with anger of her own. “He's useful on occasion, and I still have business with him. We'll get what he owes the both of us.”

You keep shaking with anger until Niranye lies down again and wraps her arm over your waist. “Go to sleep,” Niranye murmurs in your ear. “Don't fret over this. He thinks you won't remember a thing. He'll be back.”

 

* * *

 

Enthir comes down the cellar stairs arm in arm with Niranye, head bent to chat with her like an old friend. Their voices have the same secretive, slippery tone. She's smiling; he's chuckling.

To everyone upstairs, you think, it must look like Irinwe is slipping into bed with another elf while her husband is out hunting, both of them still ill-tempered at the other over Drals' night of inebriation. True, you walked out the front door of the inn with your bow several hours ago; then you snuck back in through the small sauna attached to the kitchen and crept down into the cellar while Dagur was away from the bar. It's been a long, boring afternoon of sitting amidst the barrels in the dark, especially since you weren't entirely sure that Enthir would be back in the city today. You're a hunter, though: you're accustomed to lying in wait for your prey.

Enthir unlocks his private room; Niranye tugs Enthir through the door and you slip in directly after him. Alerted by the almost unseen flurry of movement, he turns and finds you standing there, arms crossed, glowering. Enthir may be tall for a Bosmer, but you are Dunmer and easily head and shoulders taller than him. Smoldering rage gives you power to outweigh the age and experience Enthir always tries to lord over you.

“Come have a seat,” Niranye purrs, still slippery and smiling. The chair she draws from the table is not so much an offer as a threat.

“Shit,” is all Enthir says at last, and sits down, defeated. “Just my luck.”

“Indeed,” Niranye intones icily, her facade vanishing. You drop the bar over the door and Enthir flinches.

“I'd appreciate if we could keep the volume down,” Enthir says. It's an attempt at calm, but his strain is showing.

“What, do you think we're going to hurt you?” Niranye asks, sounding amused. A sudden squirm of horror and guilt clutches your insides, but you force it away: you are _not_ going to hurt Enthir. This is nothing like—that. Your momentary conflict goes unnoticed as Niranye steps in and lifts the glass trinket from around Enthir's neck; sullen, he allows it.

“I didn't know you two knew each other,” Enthir remarks. He shows his teeth in something resembling a smile. “Small world.”

“It was a surprise for everyone,” Niranye says. “Why, imagine _my_ surprise when Drals woke up the next morning without a single memory of doing any business with you the night before.”

Enthir's eyes cut over to you sharply, narrowed. You glare back, silently daring him to comment on the name he knows is false. Your nails dig into sweaty palms. It's a terrible risk to bring two conflicting sides of your life together like this, but you had no choice; you could hardly tell Niranye that you didn't want her help.

“It's not my fault if he can't hold his liquor,” Enthir protests, letting your false name slide. You let out a slow breath, though you know that won't be the end of this problem. “Are _you_ the wife Haran was talking about then, Niranye? _Irinwe_? Dear me, he can't be a quarter of your age. Just because the humans can't tell you're robbing the cradle—”

“They can be so conservative in these small towns,” Niranye interrupts, bored. “I'd rather say he was my husband than my bodyguard and skip the outrage over sharing a bed without a holy blessing.”

“Bodyguard?” Enthir switches his attention over to you the moment he has an opening; you're already tense for the attack. “Bit of a step down from healer, isn't it? Did you decide not to come back to the College after all? What _have_ you been doing in the last year?”

Oh, he knows. He knows that you're the Dragonborn. Even if they hadn't gotten any of the wanted posters up at the College, they would have found out when the Thalmor interrogated them all. And Enthir knows that you've not told Niranye, either, since you're using a false name. He's got you there.

“None of your business,” you snap, stepping forward. It makes you glad and sick at the same time to see Enthir cringe back. You want him to be _sorry_ for what he did, but you don't—you don't want to be like— “I want my money.”

“Of course!” Enthir says. He looks offended now. Gods, is he ever good at insulted arrogance. “Why wouldn't you get it? I signed the paperwork, didn't I?”

“Why did you make me forget, then?” you shout.

He tries again, dismissively, “If you can't hold your liquor—”

“ _Don't_ ,” utters Niranye, suddenly digging her fingers into Enthir's shoulder. It stops you dead, too, in the middle of a lunge you hadn't meant to make. You breathe hard between your teeth. “Not to me, Enthir.”

“Fine,” he snaps, “ _fine_ , I admit it. I wanted you to forget about me—my face, my name, everything. I didn't want you to have a damn thing to say about me when the black-coats caught you again, all right? But I swear I wasn't trying to cheat you out of the money.”

“That is rather an effect of making him forget all about you,” Niranye says icily.

You're too cold, too numb to reply. There are manacles on your wrists. _When_ the Thalmor catch you again, he said, not _if_. When. When they do—gods, how many more people will you betray, Niranye and Revyn and Asda and Stormcloak himself—all the people who have helped you, guilty by association.

“Listen to me,” Niranye is saying, into the ringing silence where you think, dazedly, you should have spoken. She's talking to Enthir, arms folded. “Pay what you owe and I'll accept that you didn't mean any harm. But I'm telling you now, as a long-time business partner: don't do anything like this to him again. Give him the same respect you'd give me.”

Enthir frowns. “Is that so?” he asks, glancing your way.

Niranye makes a sharp, dismissive gesture that you can't interpret. “Just keep your hands away from him. Now, have you got his money or not?”

“Yes, yes,” Enthir sighs. “Let me open the safe.”

He had it here the whole time? Outrage is enough to sting you out of your confusion. Arms crossed, you loom over Enthir's shoulder and ignore his insulted sighs at being so mistrustfully observed as he counts out coin from a number of sacks.

The table is awash with metallic light. Enthir counts half of the sum in quicksilver, white-shining coins worth hundred gold septims each; then there are the gold crowns, worth fifty septims each, emblazoned with an Imperial crown. These are coins that most small town merchants don't even accept, save for horse-dealers and the odd blacksmith accustomed to making arms rather than nails. The last quarter of the money Enthir deals in standard septims, those with the Emperor's head in profile: one-third gold and two-thirds good Skyrim silver.

“Are we settled now?” Enthir asks wearily, once you've hidden away the money in three separate purses on your body.

“I haven't even started with you yet,” Niranye says, pulling out a seat for herself with the air of someone who intends to enjoy her work.

“Oh, come on,” he groans. “Have a drink first. Tell me what's been going on down there; I don't hear a word of it up in that rickety tower.”

“Mm, no.”

“Tell me how Etienne is, at least,” he presses. “He came through here a wreck, said he was going to catch a boat down the coast to Windhelm and stay with you for a bit before going home. And that other one with him, what was his name...”

Niranye throws you an alarmed glance. “Enthir, not—”

“Oh, Drals knows Etienne,” he says, waving a hand. “They...”

Enthir catches sight of your face, which is just as alarmed as Niranye's. He may have gone along with using your false name, but you don't want him to tell her anything more than necessary about what happened with the Thalmor, including the names of the men you helped escape before you were caught.

But—how does she know Etienne? How does Enthir...?

“Oh, for Divines' sake!” Enthir shouts, jumping to his feet. “I tried, all right? I don't know what stories you've told each other!”

He storms off to grab a bottle of wine from the shelf, grumbling all the while. This leaves you and Niranye to stare at each other.

“Etienne is a long-time customer of mine,” she says at last, which doesn't in the least explain her alarm. “And Enthir's. He's a supplier, actually. We've become quite close over the years.”

“I wouldn't trust him if I were you,” you say grouchily. Thinking about Etienne beyond the circumstances of your last meeting beneath the Thalmor Embassy makes you hot and cold all over, and thoroughly angry. “He's a liar and a thief, and—and half of what he sells you is probably stolen!”

A liar and a thief and marvelous in bed. A terrible, regrettable chapter in your history of lovers, one that you can't stand to remember. What can you even _say_ about it? —that you killed a dragon outside of Riften and met Etienne later that night with your blood still hot and your soul still screaming, still so much an animal inside your own skin that you tossed a complete stranger into bed and did your best to wreck, to ruin, to _conquer_ so that you could satisfy Navnirrosk's soul inside you, not yet settled, locked in dying throes of rage at being conquered? —and that in the morning Etienne had been bruised and entirely satisfied about it, thank Dibella that you hadn't overstepped horrendously in your vicious hunger, and somehow you'd stumbled from there into a week's romance, a heady blur of sex and lounging in bed? You'd thought it was the perfect, well-deserved remedy for the exhaustion of dragons and Delphine and all her expectations, the responsibility...

Until a man in the marketplace had asked you to steal a ring and frame an honest merchant, and instead you had warned Madesi and Brand-Shei, and the Riften guard besides. You hadn't thought for a moment that it had anything to do with Etienne, of course, until later that night when you'd been attacked in an alleyway, no warning, no guards near enough to respond to your howling when you were set upon, beaten, kicked kicked _kicked_ until you couldn't move, couldn't even breathe, and they had stolen everything you had and one of the dark figures had spat and said, “Go tell Etienne he's in trouble, elf. And don't you _ever_ play hero in Riften again.”

You don't want to think about how it all ended.

“I know,” Niranye is saying, head bowed, the picture of shame. “Drals, you have to understand... Etienne has had a hard life. He tries his best. I've known him since he was young. I can't turn him over to the guard, can I? He'd be lucky to lose just a hand.”

That's what she was worried about, then. Enthir telling you that she— _they—_ buy stolen goods from a thief whose face is probably on more wanted posters than yours.

“What about the people he steals from?” you demand, disgusted. “What about everything they lose?”

“Don't,” Niranye says abruptly, looking away. “I don't want to talk about this. Could you let Enthir and I do our business in peace, if you don't mind?”

“No,” you snap, turning on Enthir, who is lurking in a corner as if you might forget all about him. “No, I want to know. What were you saying about Etienne? Who was he with?”

“He was in rough shape,” Enthir says slowly. “Him and that elf. Malborn, that was his name. He said they bribed a fishing boat to bring them across the coast from Solitude. Trying to get away from the Thalmor. Said _you'd_ broken them out of some dungeon.”

You refuse to look at Niranye. “That was months ago. What happened?”

“Etienne went south. Stayed with Niranye, I suppose.” A silence, wherein she must nod. “Probably got back to Riften after that. I don't hear anything up here. Nobody sends me news.”

“Malborn?” you press, because you don't care what happened to Etienne—you _don't—_ but Malborn is different. He risked his life for you, sneaking you into the Thalmor Embassy, and nearly lost it because you were just as clumsy and terrible a spy as he had predicted. So pessimistic, so bitter, but somehow full enough of hope to help Delphine and you try to snatch information from the Ambassador herself. Azura, let him be alive.

Enthir shrugs. “No idea. Never met him before. He wasn't exactly talkative.”

“Jail,” Niranye says unexpectedly, heavily. “I knew I'd heard that name before somewhere. He must have come down to Windhelm with Etienne, though I never met him. They arrested him this summer. He's in jail for murder.”


	14. Ulfric (4)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ulfric, much like the reader, finally discovers where Lleros has disappeared to for so long. Malborn is accused of being the Butcher, Ulfric loses sleep, and Galmar deals with worry the only way he knows how.

Your shoulder aches without mercy, even as you do your best to arrange yourself in bed to accommodate it. A folded pillow under your elbow eases the joint a little, but never enough. A bottle of mead would do better, but this is no emergency; you dare not court that habit again.

A whole and undamaged joint would cause no pain at all, but it is decades too late for that. It isn't as though wishing your body to be spared was particularly effective at the time, either.

After an hour shifting and cursing between failed meditations, you roll heavily onto your back. Pain peaks as your shoulder protests the change in position and then relaxes flat into the mattress. This is no time to fight your body until it obeys: you've already spent so many nights sleepless or sleeping less that Galmar has begun to bark back about your shortened temper. Better to attempt resting supine and exposed than not at all.

(Better if Lleros returned. If you could stop worrying, growling over the fact that he told Jorleif he would be gone one week and has not been seen in three. Suddenly the political climate is full of concerns that you had thought were safely under control. You don't need this additional reason not to sleep at night.)

Suddenly—pain, static and ghostly. A tingle ignites in your toes and crackles over your whole body like an echo of the lightning you remember.

You feel this, and yet it is too late to move; you are already on the dark edge of unconscious, going down, your awareness a last candlelight in the still room of a body gone quiet. Sleep comes with resigned knowing: it is to be one of those nights, then.

Dark. Dark.

You open your eyes to moonlight on the ceiling, hatched to pieces by lead bars. Your ceiling. Your room. Your palace, where you are king. But your heart is racing and you cannot _breathe_ and you know, you _know_ that there is someone in the room.

Tall. She looms. She is coming.

You are trapped. Frozen. Everything in pieces: breath, body, mind, all scrambling fractured like glass through fingers. Screaming in the ears, deaf-loud. She. In the corner. Run. Cannot run. Cannot—breathe, cannot—all screaming—She—no—

She—

Wheezing in a breath so hard that it burns, you bolt upright in bed. The ice shatters off; everything trembles uncontrollably now. Down feathers shear into the air in the arc of your knife as you tear it from its sheath nailed low on the headboard, cutting beneath the pillow on its way out. Wild-eyed, you stare into the shadows, already knowing they are empty.

They _are_ empty. They will always be empty. Remember that.

Anger is the easiest recourse. You know so well how to slip into it, and who to blame. And who could say you are wrong to be angry? Teeth clenched, you climb out of bed and force stiff limbs into the quilted robe and boots lying near to hand. You strap your sword belt on as if the robe were a gambeson, yanking the buckle tighter than needs be. There is no accompanying belt for a shield that your left arm has been too weak to lift for years.

The hearth has cooled since evening. You know better than to fumble for a fresh spark for a candle to read by. It would only show the shake of your hands, and you cannot stand that right now, not even if nobody but you will know what is wrong.

The crack beneath Galmar's door is unlit, and so too is Yrsarald's. You had hoped that your bard might be still awake, mulling over parchment at the odd hours his scholar-heart keeps when unbound by a military schedule. Unwilling to turn back to your own chambers, you walk farther. Dark, Fryske's chamber. Dark, Lleros'.

Downstairs, as if you have a destination in mind. The question is not where a king may wander if he pleases. (Anywhere, of course.) The question is where he may wander while his guards are watching and wondering at every moment how he spends his precious time and attention.

The kitchen is good, familiar, safe. It drew your steps when you were younger, too, and seeking the bottle. Now you seek a stoked hearth, a mug of mulled young cider from the autumn's final fresh apples, the kitchen-comforts of warm stone and old supper smells that even a jarlson grows up knowing.

Voices stop you.

“—any more bread? There's none fresh but you may as well eat the lot,” Sifnar is saying, and Lleros—

Lleros—

—replies, “If it's all right. Thank you.” Dry crust breaks, torn into big bites that you don't need to see in order to know. He eats like a starveling, given the chance.

Relief crashes over you. Lleros is here. He's safe. For a moment, all you have is that uncomplicated first reaction. Then you are back to wondering: how is he? Well? Or worse than when he left? And does he still nurse the anger he had when he stormed off weeks ago? You're not sure this is the time and place to speak with him.

Indecision leaves you standing in the dim corridor outside the kitchen, a spy in your own palace. But you are around the corridor's turn from the main hall, so no guard on the night watch can see you, and the kitchen's door is cracked only slightly, putting you out of sight of the midnight meal within.

Absurdity occurs to you, and embarrassment at behaviour that is beneath you—beneath any man. You push them off after a brief struggle.

It's your palace. Why shouldn't you stand and listen where you please?

“Some of us were starting to think we mightn't see you back again,” Sifnar says, over the scrape of his ladle on iron. “Getting close on to storm season.”

That's not why they all thought Lleros wouldn't return and you know it. Lleros knows it, judging by the ashen-curled embarrassment in his voice. “It... it took longer than I thought. I didn't mean to—I hope I didn't... cause any trouble.”

“Not a trouble, sir. Just a thinking. Here, finish this. Some of the night watch'll be getting the side of my kettle when I find who's been cutting into the pies. Glad to be back, are you? Travelled awfully late tonight to get here at this hour.”

“I'm not fit for travelling any more,” Lleros says, hollow as a ghost. From how faint it is, he could be talking to himself. “I didn't imagine... how hard it would be. I can't...”

If he was expecting from Sifnar's age that he might be half-deaf, Lleros is much mistaken. “Ah, well,” Sifnar sighs. “But did it settle your soul, is the question.”

“What?”

“Did you do what you needed to do?” Sifnar asks. “Did you get what you went for?” In the silence, Lleros must nod. Sifnar sighs again, suddenly sounding very much the small, tired old man that he is. “Then you got what you needed and came back alive, in your own time. That's more than some men do, sir. Take it as a victory and sleep it off all you need to.”

A fist clenches below your heart. You remember, abruptly, how very long Sifnar has been your family's cook. How many nights he has known you to visit this kitchen, both after and—before. He is not the... the _fixture_ that you think of him as. Not a part of the palace. He's a man, and he remembers...

You don't want to hear this. It's not for you, this hearth-talk with a broken elf, and what's more, it's not for you to interrupt. You should go.

(But you're the Jarl, and Lleros is back. You want to see him. You should—)

“I don't mean to keep you awake,” Lleros says.

“I'd be up anyway,” Sifnar says. “These old bones don't let me sleep much. I mostly nap over the noontide.”

“Your hands? I... Here, let me see.” Abruptly, Lleros sounds brisk, warm. “I know a thing or two about old bones. I studied Restoration at the College for seven years, and it has two things in spades: cold, and creaky old mages that complain about their joints in the cold.”

Sifnar chuckles. Lleros prattles along as their shadows on the wall move together. “Here now. I see. Let me...” Golden light blooms. “You know, I spent a good chunk of time soothing joints for the Archmage himself. Hardly anything more nerve-wracking than a bitty little apprentice trying to work good healing on a Master Healer himself. Toughens up the spine, Colette said.”

“Well, I don't know anything about any Archmages,” Sifnar says, “but if he made you learn this, I don't suppose I ought to complain. Talos be _praised_.”

“Better?”

“Like I was ten winters younger! Shor's bones and Talos' mighty beard, it doesn't hurt at all.”

“It won't last forever, but it might let you sleep a few nights. Should I see your knees as well?”

“Bless it, if you would.”

Lleros continues to hum and mutter over Sifnar's sighing of relief. Occasionally, there is the crackle of a joint being tested to approving murmurs. It's like nothing you've ever heard out of Lleros, this easy patter of story and question, testing for expected weakness and then working it away. And then you realize: the healer is healing again. He has slipped into some old part of himself and found that it still fits.

Feet shuffle, and Sifnar sighs, “Divines, that's better. For witch-work, I suppose you do all right. I haven't much on me but a few silvers, but they're yours.”

“What? No, I couldn't. It's all right, I don't need them.”

“I won't take your work for free,” Sifnar insists.

“Please, I don't—”

Enough is enough. Now Lleros _ought_ to be interrupted. You push open the kitchen door and step in as if you had not been standing silently by.

They both turn to look. Sifnar sees you first; he's surprised but not alarmed. “Jarl Ulfric,” he greets, bobbing his head.

You see it in the corner of your eye, but you are not looking because _Lleros_ is looking at you, eyes wide, a shock of red. His thinness is a shock as well. Has he gotten bonier in his absence, or did you just forget how gaunt his face was? Or is it the absence of his face paint, which has somehow already become familiar?

You had words planned, words rolled over and over in your mind until a dozen different sentiments had been honed for a dozen different meetings, and you hadn't known which you would choose. But none of them is right for now, for here, for the bedraggled elf wet from the night's snows and wrapped in a blanket by your kitchen hearth, returned to Windhelm victorious but tired and hurting for the cost of it. “Lleros,” is all you say, and softly.

He blinks, unable to gather words. Your arrival is as much shock to him as his was to you, and he hasn't had minutes to gather himself. This wasn't how he had planned to greet you again, either, with him in a blanket and you in a night robe.

Heedless of the silence, you call, “Sifnar,” and thankfully your voice comes as if this were any ordinary evening. “Is there any cider?”

“Aye, Jarl Ulfric. In a moment.”

Casually, you push your sword out of the way and lower yourself into a chair beside the hearth. Your sigh at taking the weight off your feet is not faked, but the decision to voice it is calculated. If his rapid blinking is any sign, Lleros is all the more baffled.

“What was it he was trying to pay you for?” you ask, taking a heel of crusty bread from Lleros' plate on the table. You break off a bit and eat.

Lleros' mouth works before he can manage, “A… healing. Of his joints.”

“Take the coin, then,” you advise mildly. “Don't offend his pride.”

Lleros watches you eat his bread, blinking rapidly. You act as though you don't notice. Sifnar shuffles back in with a bottle of cloudy young cider, so intent on his work that he scarcely notices the silence, and warms the drink with the plunge of a hot poker from the fire before he hands it to you. You sigh your gratitude and send him off with a firm word: no, you don't need anything to eat, no, you won't have anything else from him, thank you, good night.

Lleros is still staring. Well, if he won't speak, then you will. “I expected you back weeks ago,” you say tartly, because blanket or no blanket, he has cost you too many nights of sleep. “But I suppose you're back in the end. Was your journey worth it?”

“You're in your bed clothes,” is what Lleros finally says. He sounds positively _plaintive_. “How am I supposed to talk to you like this?”

“When you met me, I was in bonds,” you remind him. And you've seen him in rags. “Clothes don't make a king. Does it make such a difference to you?”

He shuts his eyes hard and shakes his head. “It's not—no. I can't. No, Jarl Stormcloak, believe me. You'll wish this had waited until morning.”

His tone gives you pause. Lleros hasn't merely gone and returned, then. He has brought something back with him. “Can it _not_ wait?”

“He's waited long enough.”

Not a something. A _someone_. The shadows in Lleros' eyes make your skin prickle. Measuring your tone to keep out unease and hostility alike, you ask, "Who."

Lleros shivers; he hitches his blanket higher around his neck and shifts his shoulders uncomfortably. His in-drawn breath trembles. "He was—" he begins, but cannot continue. "When I... the Embassy. He was my... contact. He got me in. My armour. Weapons."

His eyes flicker to you. Not for reassurance, you know, but in reflex. Caution. Checking your reaction to the information he's surrendering. This might be the first time he has told anyone what happened inside the Embassy. All you do is tip your head a little and wait, making yourself patient despite your tension.

"Inside, they caught him. Even before they caught me." Lleros gives a high, bitter laugh. His teeth bare in a mean smile. It's better than cowering, but only barely. "Before they _came_ to get me, I mean. She probably caught me the moment I walked in. But they... dragged him into the room. I killed them, but there were more coming, so we ran—the tunnel, I told you. Malborn was out ahead of me, but then they—" He takes a sharp breath and snaps his jaw shut over a tremble, staring fixedly at the wall for a long moment.

"I didn't know what happened to him," Lleros says, slow with determination to keep his voice steady. "I never thought. Until I ran into someone who knew us both, and he said Malborn was in Windhelm."

"He was your contact inside the Thalmor Embassy," you repeat. The name is unfamiliar. Maybe Breton...?

"They were going to kill him," Lleros snaps, bristling up at the implicit accusation in your words: after all, who but Thalmor and their supporters are allowed in the Embassy? "I broke his cover, I wasn't good enough. They would have killed him too if they'd caught him."

"And now he's here."

"For safety, I assume."

You tap a restless finger on the arm of your chair. "How well do you know his loyalties?"

"He hates the Thalmor," Lleros says. "They purged his family. Just because he was..." He waves an indistinct hand. "—in there, doesn't mean..."

Purges have been the oppressive fallback of the goldskins in every iteration of their empire. They try to bury the truth along with the dead, but you have had Yrsarald digging through the histories of five nations for years, and he has always found records left by dissidents, refugees, and survivors. But the provinces where the Dominion holds territory securely enough to do so in _recent_ years... "He's a high elf?"

"No, no, Bosmer."

"Who have been the allies of the Aldmeri Dominion for _decades_."

"They were conquered," Lleros insists. "You can't expect everyone in a nation to be loyal just, just because they've been... It's not as if the Dominion ever gave anyone a _choice_."

"Where is this Malborn now?" you demand, forgetting not to question.

Lleros swallows hard. "Jail."

"So he's already committed some crime in my city."

"I don't _know_ ," Lleros says. "I just found out, I don't know everything. Jarl Stormcloak, I need to talk to him, I need to—see."

Your ever-lowering brow weighs heavily on him. Desperation is making him start to plead, maybe unconsciously: _mercy_ , his eyes say. But it's not himself he's desperate for.

"Wait here," you say at last, and go to wake Galmar. And get a shirt.

"I told you the Dragonborn wasn't safe to have here," Galmar mutters, lumbering down the stairs before you, even keener than you to get back to the elf— _elves_ —waiting downstairs. "A Thalmor right in our walls..."

"If he's to be believed, we've had the elf in here since long before Lleros arrived. I sent Jorleif for the prison records."

"If he's to be believed—"

"We'll see," you say sharply.

Lleros is _not_ where you left him: by the fire, warm and fed, and _out of the way_ in case the situation gets... complicated. He's by the door to the Bloodworks, head hanging as Jorleif hisses at him. They're not kind words, by the looks of it.

"—disturb Ulfric himself in the middle of the night, as if... Jarl Ulfric, surely you can wait until morning to deal with this. In fact, if it's a matter of prisoner keeping, I can handle it myself."

"Not this time," you say, and wave the guardswoman to unbar the door. "Have you found his records?"

"You said... Maborn?"

"Malborn," corrects Lleros, anxiously following down the stairs at the back of the group.

Jorleif mutters as he struggles to page through his log book while walking down the dim staircase, then through the Bloodworks, which is full of snoring and lowest-lit only by two smouldering hearths. It's not until you reach the prison proper, down another switchback of stairs, that Jorleif finds the entry.

"Yes, here," he says. "The wood elf Malborn. Arrested on the 30th of Sun's Height for the murder of a Nord woman, identity unknown. Potentially suspected of being the so-called Butcher, though he denied it in interrogation."

Lleros squirms visibly. Does he realize he has his arms folded over his chest to hold himself for comfort? "I need to see him," he repeats.

You glance around the main block of jail cells. Lleros' eyes track yours. There is a rack in the corner, shrouded in cobwebs. You've never bothered having it removed. You're not often down here in person.

"You should wait upstairs," you tell Lleros.

"I need to see him," he croaks.

Jorleif makes a stifled noise. Before you can push again, Galmar barks at the nearby guard, "Come here. You need to find us a prisoner."

She clanks up straight, adjusting a too-large helmet that slides immediately back down her acned nose. "Sir? Jarl Ulfric?"

It hurts to hear a soldier speak in a voice so young, so openly awed. "We need the cell of Malborn. A wood elf."

"Mal... oh! Yes, yes, he's in the third block. Shall I—this way, sir."

Lleros should have stayed upstairs. His shoulders hunch smaller in the narrow prison halls; at the distant sound of a disgruntled prisoner banging his tankard on the bars, he flinches so violently that you see it even out of the farthest corner of your eye. You glance back and find him clutching an amulet in white knuckles, biting his lip hard. But he declined to stay out. He can suffer if he so insists. You are not going to coddle him.

"Malborn! Stand up, the Jarl is here to see you."

She looks more anxious than the elf you find peering back between the bars. He doesn't move from reclining on the heap of straw scraped up to support his back. He's small and sharp all over, narrow eyed. His brown skin clings to his flesh and bones in a subtly unnerving way, showing every vein and too many bones. Since the jail is windowless and always lit, night is the same as day, and so he is awake, his hands occupied by prisoners' work: pushing straw from his heap through a hollow, narrow-ended horn and binding it with string into a tight strand, later to be coiled into an archery target. The garrison and army trainees can tear through five targets a day. In Windhelm, prisoners earn their food.

"Ulfric Stormcloak," says this Malborn, but betrays himself with a nervous lick of his lips. "To what do I owe the honor?"

Then Lleros utters, " _Malborn_ ," wretched and desperate, and shoves past you to grab the bars. He clings to them for support. "Malborn, I..."

The elf's surprise at Lleros _pushing_ you shifts into outright shock when he registers Lleros' face. He looks as if he's seen a ghost—and he might well think so, considering that he left Lleros in Elenwen's talons.

"You're alive," Malborn breathes, scrambling to his feet. "I thought you were _dead_." Then his gaze flicks over the whole of Lleros once more, taking in the dozen tiny fractures and knowing exactly what they mean. He recovers his cool composure. "I... see."

Lleros smiles thinly. "Almost."

"What interesting company you keep these days," Malborn says with a polite little bow. He folds his hands in front of himself and speaks like a sheathed knife. If you hadn't known he was one of Elenwen's people, you would believe his mannered lie.

"There you are, then," you say to Lleros, vexed beyond enduring. " _Your_ interesting company."

"Did you do it?" Lleros demands of Malborn in a whisper. "Were you..."

"No, no, _no_ ," he snaps. "I'm not the Butcher. I've never been the Butcher. I don't know who the Butcher is. If it weren't for the gossip I wouldn't have even known there _was_ a Butcher until they asked me. And kept asking me."

"But did you kill that woman?"

Now he shifts uneasily. "Ah. Well... technically, yes. But it was self defense! And you see, from a certain point of view, I don't think you should even _mind_ , Jarl Ulfric."

"Do tell."

Malborn's eyes flicker across the cells opposite his, and their occupants. In a whisper melodramatic enough to make your mouth pull skeptically, he says, "She was a Thalmor assassin. And she wasn't the first."

"Oh," says Lleros, stricken. “Oh, I didn’t think…”

" _Really_ ," Malborn says. "Did you think Herself would just give up the moment I set foot off the premises? The Thalmor aren't in the habit of letting turncoats walk free. They will be hunting me for the rest of my days."

"Jarna," interrupts Galmar. "Put him in chains. We'll take this upstairs."

Lleros hovers as Jarna unlocks the cell and fumbles out her manacles. Malborn stands back from the door and offers his wrists as meekly as anything, even going so far as to bow his head. You glare at the show of subservience. Even if it is genuine, that doesn’t mean this slip-boned twist of an elf can’t change in a moment.

You turn on your heel and stride for fresh air.

 

* * *

 

A sleepy-eyed servant is still kindling a fire in the hearth when Galmar marches Malborn into the room three steps ahead of you and Lleros. “Out,” Galmar barks. “Never mind that.”

Malborn cooperates with Galmar’s rough handling, docile as a kitten. He folds into the chair Galmar shoves him at and sits with his head bowed, even as Lleros says, “Don’t!”

“It’s fine,” Malborn says.

“Quiet,” you order, before either of them can start.

“ _Don’t_!” Lleros shouts.

You turn on your heel to level a stare at him. You’re no longer incredulous at Lleros’ outbursts of fire; you know he has nothing but disrespect and rage for you. That doesn’t mean you intend to let him shout unmatched.

“I have already told you to go elsewhere if you cannot handle this.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lleros snarls, pacing toward Malborn. Behind Malborn’s chair, he draws himself up like a hawk mantling over its young. They make a strange picture. Lleros is gaunt and tall, hair still bedraggled from the night’s snow, holding the back of Malborn’s chair for white-knuckled support even as he faces you ready to fight; Malborn is small-boned and huddled even smaller, every inch a fearful prisoner—except for the flash of his narrowed eyes flickering over Galmar and then you. Too late, he sees you watching, flinches, and turns his eyes down again.

The fear and the flinch might even be real. Talos only knows what the Thalmor do to their servants. But it takes compliance and calculation in equal measures to survive long underneath Elenwen’s heels. This little elf isn’t less dangerous for being broken.

“Take a seat, then,” you tell Lleros, leaving the tension in the room untested. This isn’t a confrontation you can win in any sense. He’s taken Malborn under his wing as if they had been comrades in Elenwen’s dungeon. You’d have to pry that connection from his dead fingers if you wanted them separated.

You turn your eyes to Malborn and lay the full weight of your attention directly on him for the first time. He stiffens. "Malborn," you say, testing his name on your tongue. "Let's start with the woman you murdered."

"The Thalmor," Malborn says.

Galmar scoffs. "In the High King's own city? A likely story."

"In _every_ city," insists Malborn. "I wouldn't have thought the High King of all people would underestimate that."

"Watch your mouth!" barks Galmar.

Lleros jolts. His fingers dig convulsively into the chair's back. Malborn merely bows his head and murmurs, "Of course."

"Enough of that," you snap. "Explain."

"Start with how you got in here in the first place," Galmar adds.

Malborn folds his hands in his lap, the picture of a decorous servant. "Through the front gate. I answered questions from different guards for three days before someone let me in. They were very thorough, I assure you."

"You... you came with Etienne," Lleros interrupts, then presses his fingers to his lips. "I'm sorry."

"I got him here in one piece, you mean, yes." You don't miss how annoyance shines through Malborn's manners the moment he speaks to Lleros. Is it contempt? Anger at Lleros for... failing whatever intrusion of the Embassy they participated in? Or is Lleros merely the only one here that he's not afraid of? Either way, it's the closest Malborn seems to come to honesty. "He went his way, I went mine, I've never seen him since and I don't care to. Is he still alive as well?"

"I don't know."

"Mm." Malborn's tone doesn't suggest optimism. Then he mocks a little bow to you. "Pardon, Jarl Ulfric. Like I said, I came into the city through your _formidable_ security. I had intended to leave for Morrowind as soon as possible. But by the time I had scraped together supplies for the trip, the Thalmor agents had caught up with me. They sent one of their assassins. A Khajiit. He couldn't get into the city after me, but I couldn't leave, either."

"And how do you know this cat was an assassin?"

"I could tell from the way he was looking at me. And I swear I recognized him from somewhere. He might even have been one of Herself's own favorites."

"Because you're also a Thalmor," presses Galmar.

" _No_."

"And then?" you ask.

"What could I do? I got a job sweeping floors, found a hole to live in, and I hid. I had _hoped_ to find some kind of help to take care of her, but apparently there's nobody to be found in the entire city. I knew the Thalmor would get someone past the guards sooner or later. And they did."

"So you killed her."

"No," Malborn says, after a moment of hesitation. "That woman was the second one. The first was a man, a Breton. What was I supposed to do?" he adds defensively. "Lay down and die? Offer him my throat? He attacked me first! I was just lucky that I was still so on edge that I saw him coming."

You will have to tell Jorleif to check the Windhelm guard's records. Somewhere in one of those log books there is note of a corpse without a known killer—one of too many such corpses. Half-grown children make for poor guards.

You force your mind back onto the problem at hand. "You ran from the scene of a crime."

"Should I have _stayed_?" Malborn demands, his meekness slipping again. Outrage at his situation seems to outweigh his fear every time. "I can picture that. Oh, yes, Jarl Ulfric, you see, this man is a Thalmor and he wanted to kill me because _I_ used to work for them! I was _desperate_ , not suicidal."

"Yet here you are," you retort. "Or do you intend to hide the Thalmor's secrets again?"

Fire flashes across Malborn's face: outrage, insult, hatred. Real. "I want them _dead_ ," he utters. His eyes narrow almost to nothing, which darkens his huge liquid irises to slits of black. "You know what they are. What they do. You of all people, you _must_."

It gets under your skin, the way he says 'you _of all people_.' He could very well mean _because you're the one rebelling against them_ , which everyone knows; he could even mean _because you fought them in the Great War_. But you don't dare accept the simple answer when it comes to the Thalmor or anyone close to them. You don't know what Malborn may have seen or heard inside that Embassy. While serving Elenwen.

"And you—" He cranes his neck to look up at Lleros behind him, and a desperate whine creeps into his voice. "You know I'm not one of them. I let myself get talked into this mess to help. I'm just not a hero like you. On my own, I didn't stand a chance. All those years I waited, and I hoped..."

He slumps, hanging his head. "I don't know. Maybe I was just scared for my own skin. I always have been," he adds bitterly. "But I decided a long time ago that as long as I was going to stay alive, I may as well stay alive to do something _useful_. For when someone like you came along."

"Much good I did," Lleros whispers.

"You did your best," Malborn says, a touch perfunctorily. "Look what happened to the Blades. The Blades! If the damn Blades were no match for the Thalmor, what chance did we have?"

That is...

—no. No. Not every man breaks. So many died rather than betray. You cannot dishonour them by thinking that compliance is ever acceptable.

Silence hangs, then, filled only by the crackle of the fire finally catching on the laid logs. Lleros doesn't appear able to reply; he only stares thin-lipped at his hands. Though Malborn seems to have little sympathy for anyone but himself, his comfort might be genuine. It's just nowhere near enough.

"Tell me, then," you say, forcing away your discomfort. "Why it is I should believe you would risk your life to betray the Thalmor when you seem to do nothing but protect yourself."

Lleros draws a sharp breath but doesn't speak; you refuse the distraction of wondering how you've damaged his opinion of you now. You remain focused on Malborn, watching for the tiny reactions that betray truth.

When Malborn looks at you, it's impossible to read anything in his strange, dark eyes.

"Have you ever seen fifty people burned alive at the same time?" he asks, eerily calm.

Blood rushes in your ears. By Talos, yes, you have. You've dulled your sword on battlefields full of lightning and witchfire, reeking of hot fat and charred flesh. You remember the way evaporated grease clung to your skin. Sweet-sour ash. Ember-filled braziers. Firelight rippling on stone walls. Hands—

"You'd think that once you've seen one person roasted alive, you've seen them all," Malborn drawls. "But it's not the same. It's so much worse."

Either you hid your reactions or he's satisfied with what he saw. You cannot tell. You don't know what your face showed—but he stole your voice for a moment, didn't he? And he still has a hold on Lleros, with stark horror in his eyes. On Galmar, whose hand is white-knuckled around his axe's haft. _Damn_ this wretch.

"The Thalmor purged my village," says Malborn. "They never really _stopped_ purging, you know. They just got quieter about it. People would disappear without a trace. But every once in a while, they would decide that some town or other had too many _undesirables_ , and they'd make a demonstration of it."

A cart full of heads. A week spent listening to the screams of others, waiting for your turn.

"The only reason I wasn't put on the fire was because my parents lied on the census when I was six. I didn't find out until later that I was legally the son of a distant uncle, that I wasn't even technically _living_ in their house. Apparently they saw trouble coming. Not that it stopped them from doing what they did... whatever it was. I don't know. Enough to get them tied on a grill and roasted in the square."

Lleros gives a wretched choking noise and abruptly wheels away from Malborn's chair. He stands with his back to the room, hands pressed over his mouth. Despite his earlier expression of comfort, Malborn doesn't seem to care. His eyes remain fixed on you. Resisting the almost painful pull to look to Lleros, you force yourself to return his stare, spine tight, jaw clenched.

"They made us watch the whole thing," Malborn utters, eyes blazing. "And then they brought us inside the fort and offered us a meal to congratulate us on our loyalty to the Dominion. Bowls full of leaves. Salad. With our dead outside burned to a crisp on the coals."

He pauses and scoffs a little. Perhaps he caught your disgust at the recollection of what wood elf funeral rites entail. "Of course that means nothing to you Nords. But imagine if... oh, if the Thalmor were to sit your people down and demand they eat your war dead in order to prove their loyalty. That's what it was to us, that... _carnage_. Depravity."

Malborn bares his teeth. They're flat. The way he grimaces makes you think that this, as much as anything else, may be evidence of his honesty. If he was ever the kind of Bosmer to file his teeth, he hasn't done so in decades.

"I ate it," Malborn grates out. It could be shame or rage choking his throat; after all, you never feel one without the other. "I ate it. And I took the job they assigned me, and I never said a word. And everyone who didn't went on the grills for the next day's crowd."

A sudden noise of anguish interrupts. It takes you a moment of waiting for the sound to pass to realize that it's not memory intruding. You finally rip your eyes away from Malborn to see Lleros leaning on the wall, gasping for breath. One hand clutches his amulet so hard that its leather strap cuts into his throat.

"I can't," he wheezes. "I can't, I'm sorry. I—Malborn—Jarl, I—I'm s-sorry—"

"For Talos' sake, go," you urge, and if it comes out angry, it's because anger is easiest. "I'm not about to kill him as soon as you turn your back. You're still welcome to the room upstairs, if that's what you were worried about."

"Malborn—"

" _Go_ ," Malborn says. "You don't need to hear this."

It surprises you that he would voluntarily give up his protector. But that assurance is all it takes for Lleros to cover his mouth with a hand, stifling his ragged gasps, and hurry out of the room.

You don't like to repeat your mistakes, yet the scene is familiar. This is the second time you've driven Lleros off trembling from your questions, and pushed him Talos knows how much farther away from you. This time you cannot blame it on Galmar and Yrsarald pushing too hard on wounds not wholly healed.

( _And I was_ _ **cooperating**_ , Lleros had said, spitting the word like the poison it was. _Cooperating_. During the War, you know there were men who took the easy way out, preferring the kidskin glove over the tools such hands held. They accepted bribes of food and drink, bedding, money, safe passage under cover back to the lines. Such men as the Empire is built on: capitulating, every one of them. Like Malborn.

—But Elenwen needn't have held Lleros captive for three months if he had chosen compliance. Perhaps he meant... breakage. Perhaps...)

You have another elf to question. This one not Dragonborn. This one not safe.

When you turn back to him, Malborn is sitting small-shouldered in his chair, a submissive huddle. His body language says _please, pay no attention to me, don't hurt me_. Perhaps this works on the sort of masters who think little of servants, and look at them even less. But Malborn's eyes are bright, sharp amber, and they make you remember that he was once—and always will be—a predator.

"Enough," you tell him, sick of the pretense. You've seen his mask slip far too often to indulge the facade any longer.

"I don't know what you—"

" _Enough_ ," you thunder, because Lleros isn't here to see you threaten an anxious-eyed elf half your size with the edge of your Voice.

Malborn flinches, his face twisting with anticipation of impact. But when nothing comes and instinct passes, he meets your eyes... and _there_ is the steel in his spine that has kept him alive through decades beneath the Thalmor's hammer. Bent or broken, yes. Still alive.

"He has a room," Malborn says, slowly, as if it is a revelation or even relevant.

"He's my guest. Need I remind you that you are _not_?"

He spreads his hands. "Then how can my situation get worse?"

"It _can_."

"But you're not about to kill me the moment he turns his back," Malborn says. "And—you're not going to hurt me, either."

"Won't I?" you ask dangerously.

"Not so that Lleros can see," says Malborn recklessly. "Not so that he'd lose sleep under your roof."

This is a truth too far. You stride forward into Malborn's space as if provoked rather than pierced. "Make your point," you utter, leaning down to put your faces on level.

Malborn has to take several slow, careful breaths before he can reply. He does not know how to hide fear the way you do. He has always survived by showing it.

"I agree," he says. "You're going to... be hard on me. That's fine. I know that. I've had worse. But Lleros doesn't need to know. He should get whatever sleep he can. Him knowing wouldn't save me. Not from you doing what you think you have to."

Refusing to let your face show anything, you step back. "What happened to your fear?"

Malborn smiles like the condemned. "Fear doesn't change what happens."

And you cannot do worse to him than Elenwen has already done. _You_ cannot do worse. He knows. Whether he heard it in the Embassy, pieced together that fact from fragments of Great War history, or can simply sense the pattern of damage from a history that matches his, Malborn knows that he has little to fear from you.

But not from Galmar.

"You can handle the rest of tonight, can't you, old friend?"

Malborn jumps and twists around as if he'd forgotten there is another bear in this den. By the far wall, Galmar folds his arms so that they flex heavily. His face is a thundercloud. It must have been killing him to stand back and hold his tongue for so long. "Aye. Tomorrow, too, if we damn well have to. Eh, elf?"

You nod, and you don't look back at Malborn. "I'll see you then. I have other things that require my time right now."

If Galmar were alone with you right now, he would roll his eyes and say, _Like **sleep**_. _Damn Imperials would love it if we all fell over on our own swords_. With Malborn in the room, he can't imply that sort of weakness, so you don't have to ignore him.

Galmar doesn't fight dreaming the way you do. In this lone matter his advice is poor, which frustrates you both. Yrsarald, with all his books and candles and slope-scrawled nightly writing, understands; and Jorleif has learned from years of experience to anticipate, if not quite understand, which is why you find cold water and a fresh fire laid in the hearth of your room when you return.

You scrub your hands in the basin until your skin burns. A sluice of water over your face drives back the sluggish undertow from your mind. Still, with your hands over your face, you find yourself pressing hard fingers against your brows, your eyelids, the bridge of your nose—down, down, slow and aching, weary in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. The touch of your own skin feels foreign, as if your hands belonged to someone else. You don't often take time to think on what you don't have, or you'd be mad with missing it.

Talos help you if you're not hungrier for freedom than you are for rest and comfort.

You wipe water from your beard and stride for the stack of half-drafted troop orders on your desk. Compared to wrestling with the night's events, writing orders that will send men to Sovngarde is simple: one way or another, at least you know how battle ends.

 

* * *

 

The distant, rising clangor of bells from the docks breaks you out of concentration on an old text of military history. The first fishing boats of the day are departing. When you opened your window for a bracing breath of air, the night sky had been black and cloudy; now it's yellow-streaked white in the east. There's a whisper-thin rime of ice on the surface of your water goblet. You must have let the fire die again.

You shut the window to keep out hawks and close the book on the War of Succession. Stumping a little on tingling toes, you go to rouse Yrsarald.

He's already reaching for his boots before his eyes are properly open. "Is there a problem, Ulfric?"

You catch his shoulder to slow him. "Not urgently. I need you to take over for Galmar in an interrogation."

Yrsarald tugs groggily at the strands of red-and-white embroidery that have left marks on his throat. "What happened last night?"

"The Dragonborn is back. Apparently we've had one of the Thalmor's escaped servants in our jail for months."

Yrsarald squints for a long moment. You realize it's not just his grogginess making him wonder how those statements are connected. He's not the only one who's tired.

While he washes and dresses, you explain more fully. Once he has all the necessary details about Malborn, Yrsarald understands what you want. He knows just as well as Galmar how to question a prisoner, how to ask the same question a hundred different ways for hour after hour until any falsehoods, if they exist, have slipped free. After Galmar's shouting and gruffness, Yrsarald is practically a welcome presence to even Imperial officers.

Yrsarald goes to the kitchen for something to eat before he takes over with Malborn. It's only after he's gone that you remember Lleros ate all of yesterday's bread last night. Yrsarald will either have to wake Sifnar for a key to the store rooms or risk Sifnar's wrath for purloining the cook's prepared breakfast.

Too restless to wait for him, you go to see Malborn yourself. At some point, a guard was stationed; she salutes. When you enter the room, Malborn whips towards you as if expecting salvation, then slumps. He appears far more stressed than he ever did last night. His hair is standing up all over the place and there's a wrinkled twist across the entire front of his shirt from where he is, even now, wringing the fabric with both hands.

"I need a drink," he croaks.

"You think he'll give it to you?" Galmar snorts. And indeed, it must be given: the pitcher on the table is just out of Malborn's reach. He could very well reach for it if he stood, but he obviously knows the pitcher is only there so it can be pulled away if he tries.

"Tell me what you've told him."

" _Everything_ ," Malborn says. "He already knows!"

You clench your teeth to hold your tongue from remembering the shape of those words. "Tell me again."

Defeated, Malborn complies with dull acceptance. His eyes are burning with exhaustion; you can tell from the heavy way he blinks. You listen with half an ear, more enduring than attending the answer to your own damned question.

Galmar comes around the room to stand at your side. "Did you get any rest at all?" he murmurs in your ear, facing away so that Malborn can't see.

You grunt in annoyance.

"Damnit, Ulfric," he says, too loudly. Malborn hesitates, then carries on talking with the air of someone accustomed to turning a blind ear. It's about his cleaning routines in the Embassy, things he's found hidden, private correspondences among the Thalmor.

A knock at the door interrupts before Galmar can find words appropriate to castigate you in front of a prisoner. Thinking it Yrsarald, you pull the door open.

It's Lleros.

"—think you're _doing_?" the guard is saying, her spear extended to force Lleros back from the door. "My lord, I'm sorry. I'll take him away."

"No," you say, holding up a hand. You cast Lleros a peeved eye for having evidently pushed past the guard. "Well, come in, since you're so intent on it."

The fresh red paint on his face doesn't hide the dark circles under his eyes, or the nervous twist of his mouth. "Shouldn't I?" he asks, attempting a challenge. Still, his step into the room is hesitant. It's painfully obvious that he doesn't want to be near anything like an interrogation, or even the memory of it. "Malborn?"

"No!" Malborn shouts, the moment he sees Lleros. " _No_ , absolutely not, you are not interrupting now." Yet even as he speaks, he grabs the pitcher and fills the empty cup in front of himself. Galmar twitches; you quickly touch his arm to stop him from snatching the water away in front of Lleros, though you're also inwardly irate. Malborn, the little wretch, knows exactly what he's doing. "They're nearly done, I was just about to _sleep_! Go away, go away and let them finish. _Go_."

After he recovers from his initial shock, Lleros barks a startled laugh. "You're all right, then," he says, halfway to a question. Malborn drains his cup of water in one gulp and grunts. "Fine, I'll go. I'll... see you later?" He directs this last at you, eyes narrowing to askance again.

As if you've done anything to earn the suspicion that you might take Malborn away like a withheld bribe, or hold him as a threat against Lleros' future noncompliance—even though a one-time Thalmor servant might actually _deserve_ to be locked up again. You take a sharp breath to snap before checking yourself abruptly.

"As long as I'm satisfied he's no threat," you say instead, reasonable as can be.

Lleros isn't seeing unearned threat in you, he's seeing Elenwen. Remember: he doesn't just dislike you, he fears you. Whether or not he realizes it.

He lets out a long breath. An embarrassed expression comes over his face as he seems to recognize his paranoia for himself. "Thank you," Lleros says, very politely, and bows a little. "I'll go. I'm sorry to have interrupted."

When he's gone and the door is securely closed, Galmar scoffs loudly at Malborn. "I'm nowhere near done with you, elf."

"Oh, should I have told him that?" Malborn retorts.

Galmar responds by stalking forward quickly enough to startle Malborn and snatching the cup out of his hands. It's already empty, though.

Malborn is not repentant. He might be complying with your questions, but he's only afraid on instinct, not at his core.

It doesn't matter. You don't need to terrify him into cooperation; that's not the point of this. Repetition and exhaustion will wear the falsehoods out of him.

Scowling, Galmar circles back to you. "Get some gods-damned sleep, Ulfric," he mutters in your ear. "For Skyrim's sake, if not yours. You can't lead when you're falling down."

"Yrsarald's coming to relieve you soon. Wake me before noon."

" _At_ noon."

You give him an irritated glance but refrain from arguing in front of Malborn.

Before leaving, you look back at the elf in question. He returns your stare. You're more unsettled than his eerie eyes can account for. For a long moment, the two of you share the strange knowledge of working together, despite your deep mutual mistrust, to protect Lleros from this dark, ugly reality. Malborn and you have accepted that sometimes there is no other choice but to be the thing you hate. (Torturer. Thalmor.) Lleros doesn't need to. And he doesn't need to know.

The only reason your mind can fall asleep at all, after this, is because your body has no strength left to stay awake.

 

* * *

 

On a battlefield, you stand surrounded by Legionaries. Heavy Imperial plate weighs on your own chest; the enemy wears blue wool and fur. The ranks of enemy Stormcloaks are intermixed with yours by the churn of battle. You are fighting. Everyone stands still, weapons naked but unbloodied, engaged in a war of waiting and glowers.

Not wanting to be the one to incite violence with the nearest Stormcloak, you look down at the earth. The harvest-ready golden wheat of Cyrodiil's heartland crunches beneath your boot. You flush with shame for bloodying it. Everywhere it has been trampled into the mud. The Red Ring is vanishing into a morass of blood and bodies. Lake Rumare's muck sucks at your boots.

Your joints ache. Irritable, you shake your arms. Sun flashes down the fuller of your Colovian blade. Keep your shield up, recruit! —No, no, your shoulder can't take a shield. You aren't holding one after all.

Your joints ache, intrusive and more real than the soft-edged battle around you. You realize suddenly that you're asleep, and move your arm again—your real arm—to wake up.

Every muscle and sinew in your body is stiff and your mouth cries for water, a sign you usually associate with waking from unconsciousness. With a groan, you roll over to squint at the window. It's... dark. Even at the end of Sun's Dusk there ought to be light at noon. Is the glass snowed over? How long can you possibly have slept if Galmar hasn't roused you yet?

—Someone else is in the room.

Galmar lets out a snore then, from his sprawl in a chair beside the window. Your heart begins to slow down again.

Outside the window, the sky is definitely dark.

" _Galmar_ ," you snarl, throwing your blankets back. His dim figure jolts. "How damn late is it?"

With maddening unconcern, he does nothing but rub a thick knuckle over his eyes and look at the window. "Early, I'd say."

Outrage leaves you speechless for a moment. He didn't just make you sleep the day away, he let you waste an entire _night_. As if you're some kind of milk-drinking Not-king who can lie abed if he pleases, letting his land fall to ruin and his people to prey, as if you're _invalid_ and—

"Damn you! You would have me waste time as if the Empire and the Dominion weren't both about to come down on us?"

Galmar jerks again at the reverberation of your Voice, of your temper not unleashed but roused nonetheless. As you grab for your boots, clumsy with sleep and anger, you hear his chair creak in standing. "Look at yourself, Ulfric," he urges. "You couldn't have slept so long if you didn't need it."

"What happened to the petitioners?" you demand roughly. "It was Morndas. Did they wait for a king who never came? Is that what you gave them? And what happened to the elf? And Lleros—the Dragonborn—"

"There!" Galmar erupts, finally shouting to match you. "Always the elf! Look what he's doing to you!"

"I do what I must!"

Galmar suddenly steps in to block you from your wardrobe, grabbing you roughly by the arm. You resist out of instinct, and he all but shakes you.

"You don't need him," he grates out. "You don't see yourself, Ulfric. How you bend and concede for him. Always making exceptions. Losing sleep over him—over _this_."

A weight chokes in your chest, just beneath your breastbone. You're furious, but you can't bring yourself to shove Galmar away because he is _right_. Because you haven't been able to hide from him that Lleros, that this— _situation_ is not just a tactical matter to you. It wasn't calculation that made you open your hall and hearth to Lleros when you heard that he was being hunted.

All you can manage is, "He's the Dragonborn."

"He's not one of yours," retorts Galmar, merciless as the chirurgeon's knife to infected flesh. "He has no loyalty to you or to Skyrim."

 _My work is for the people of Skyrim_ , Lleros had spat, eyes flashing, hot-souled, true-voiced, strong and angry back then like he could be again, you know it.

"He cares for Skyrim," you insist, suddenly taken by the memory, the red flare of connection that Galmar has never noticed. "He might not be a Nord, but I can't believe he was given the blood of a dragon for nothing. He has the voice of Talos himself. He'll come around."

"Ulfric—"

" _Galmar_." You grip his arm tightly in return, turning the one-sided hold into a rough embrace. Galmar wears his upset plainly. He's starkly bewildered, and he doesn't understand. It hurts you to do this to him. Knowing now that you cannot shout Galmar down from opposition driven only by concern, you gentle your voice. He deserves no less. "Old friend. Trust me."

To that, there is only one thing he can say. "With my axe and my life."

You squeeze his arm for a moment, then release. This time, Galmar lets you go.

"I hope you're right about him," Galmar says, his eyes still troubled. "For your sake."

Your heart hurts for the force of its wanting. For the first time, you admit, "So do I."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ulfric's difficulties sleeping in general are definitely a result of PTSD, like Lleros and Yrsarald. Some of the other symptoms he experiences in this chapter (temporary paralysis while falling asleep and waking up, electricity/tingling in the limbs, panic upon waking up, inability to breathe, seeing/imagining dark figures in the room, inability to tell whether one is awake or asleep while seeing things) are due to an episode of [sleep paralysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis). There's a neat documentary about sleep paralysis on Netflix called [The Nightmare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nightmare_\(2015_film\)) that I used as my main source for descriptions. Sleep paralysis is often linked to disordered sleeping (thanks, PTSD), head trauma (thanks, Great War!), and sleeping on one's back. However, sleeping on one's back is also the best way to sleep for people with multiply-dislocated shoulders (thanks, Elenwen!), since it takes pressure off the joints and keeps them properly aligned. (I took my headcanon about Ulfric's shoulders from bluRaaven's wince-worthy [Coming Home](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1811770).)
> 
> So, while Ulfric may not know the exact names and causes of his problems, he knows he has a choice between sleeping in a way that hurts his shoulders even more, and sleeping in a way that makes his nightmares way, way worse.


	15. Lleros (11)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'ALL. BEFORE WE GET TO THE STORY, Y'ALL, LOOK WHAT BLOODWRIT DID.
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> [I'M STILL CRYIN FR.](http://jottingprosaist.tumblr.com/post/154579066250/bloodwrit-jottingprosaist-s-dunmer-dovahkiin)
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> * * *

"More tea?" you ask, your hand pausing on the pitcher.

"Only if it's hot," Malborn says grumpily, pulling the bearskin he took from your bed more tightly around his shoulders.

Smiling, you hold the pitcher over a flame in your hand until its contents steam again. Malborn's mood seems to be a combination of morning tiredness and his usual choleric temper. But you yourself are pleased beyond measure. You slept without dreams, then woke to find Malborn knocking awkwardly at your door, escorted by a frowning guard, asking if he could please come into your room because gods only knew where else the guard would put him if not with you. It had taken a day and a night, but Stormcloak and his people had finally finished questioning Malborn to their satisfaction, and Malborn appears no worse the wear for it—no worse than he had been in prison, that is. Then Hjanna brought soft-boiled eggs and ham for breakfast, a rare treat and relief from the endless porridge.

Come to think of it, your cheer might also be making Malborn grouchy. He seems like that sort of person.

You pour Malborn another cup of tea, straining out the frost mirriam, thistle, and mint with a kerchief over the top of his cup. When you first started throwing herbs into hot water, earlier, he said nothing, and it wasn't until you had already poured Malborn a cup and watched him drink in sullen silence that you realized you'd given him plant matter to consume. To your horrified scrambling, he'd snapped, "Oh, stop that. I haven't followed the Pact for half my life. I can't very well go back to it now. Stop it, stop _harping_ on it!" So you feel a touch hesitant, but he's eating the bread, too, and you won't bring it up if he doesn't want to talk about it. It's not as though you know enough about the Green Pact to say anything intelligent.

"Is this going to do anything for my headache?" Malborn complains.

"This, no. But here, let me..." You reach across the table and press fingertips to his temple to cast Healing Hands. After a few moments, his suspicious squint relaxes.

"Better," he says grudgingly, and bites into another egg.

You apply yourself to eating, savoring the soft rich run of egg yolks on your bread, the saltiness of the ham. The meat is soft and juicy, with a muscle texture unlike the dried goat and stockfish you're accustomed to eating. It must be the the leftover scraps from Stormcloak's supper board—even in the Palace of the Kings you can't imagine someone roasting a whole ham just for breakfast—but it's still fresher than just about anything you've had that wasn't slaughtered by your own hand.

You unintentionally sigh with satisfaction and settle down into your chair to nibble on another slice of bread. The urgency of hunger is gone. The hearth fire is warm. Malborn is here, and safe, and whole.

And yet...

Eventually, you have to ask Malborn the one question keeping you from complete relaxation. "What are you planning to do now?"

"Sleep some more."

"No, I mean... are you going to stay?" Even as you say it, you know it's a stupid question. It's unbelievable enough that Ulfric Stormcloak has extended guest-right to _you_ , Dragonborn or not. He will not do the same for Malborn.

"Here?" Malborn says incredulously. "No. Not even in Windhelm, if I can help it. This was supposed to be _temporary_. I was supposed to be in Morrowind by now. Your people don't care much for the Thalmor and I figured I'd be safe there. As safe as anywhere, that is."

"You know, I was planning to run off to Morrowind once."

"But you decided to give it up for beautiful, welcoming Windhelm?"

You snort. It's funny because he's not wrong. "I didn't think I'd survive the border crossing."

"That makes two of us, then," Malborn says gloomily. "There are still Thalmor agents out there, just waiting for me to leave so they can follow me and kill me in some lonely place."

Despite the crackling fire and the blanket over your lap, you shiver. To hide from the Thalmor, you've painted your face and taken a false name. On your trip from Winterhold back to Windhelm, spurred by fresh urgency to find Malborn, you paid a fishing boat captain to let Niranye and you ride his boat back down the coast. For the entire trip, you wore Niranye's fine green-gold scarf wrapped around your head to cover everything except your eyes, and didn't speak a word; Niranye told the crew you were her wife and such customs were common to new dark elf brides. Neither of you wanted to take the risk that any Thalmor at the College would hear too many stories about an Altmer woman and Dunmer man travelling together, much less get suspicious about why Irinwe and Drals, a nomadic hunter couple, would hike up from the south only to take sea passage back to Windhelm immediately. From there, Niranye said, it would be all too simple for an agent to ask questions about the _very_ few Altmer women in Windhelm. The two of you even disembarked from the fishing boat on the south bank of the estuary and let the crew see you head down the road _away_ from Windhelm before doubling back. You've taken all the precautions you can, and you know it still might not be enough to keep you safe.

" _Say_ ," Malborn adds. "You could come with me." At your surprise, he gets more emphatic. "Come with me! You're strong, you've got that bow of yours. You're the Dragonborn, aren't you? You can take care of any assassin that comes after us, and you'd be a big help in Morrowind, since I don't speak a word of... what is it, Dunmeri?"

It's astonishing how quickly your good mood vanishes. "I'm from _Skyrim_ ," you snap. "I don't speak Dunmeris either. And I don't—I'm useless on the road, I can't even protect myself. I've tried it, and I can't."

"No, I know you could. Please. You'll be saving my life."

"I _can't_."

Abruptly, Malborn gives up on garnering sympathy. "What, do you want to stay _here_?" he demands. "With the Thalmor breathing down your neck for the rest of your life, relying on Ulfric Stormcloak? In _this_ city? This frozen hellhole of a province?"

You stare at him, as long and cold as the Skyrim winter that Malborn evidently hates. It wasn't until his last sentence that you knew you had made a choice. Now that the words are out, though, it's become so clear.

Your whole life you've fought Nords who didn't recognize that you belonged in Skyrim. Most days you tried to be friendly, tried to impress, and often it worked... but too many times they left you no choice but to prove yourself with your fists. You've got the scarred knuckles and oft-broken nose to prove it. You've made your parents despair for years about your willingness to get in scraps that you hadn't a hope of winning. For Azura's sake, you shouted at _Ulfric Stormcloak_ because he refused to see that a Dunmer could belong in Skyrim.

This is where you live. It's your home. Even though you're terrified of the mantle that's been laid on your shoulders, so heavy that it has knocked you far off the path of everything you ever knew, you must try to live up to it. You may very well die here, whether by Elenwen or Alduin's doing, but you will die _here_. Let no one say Lleros Ulawayn wasn't a true son of snow.

"I'm from Skyrim," you repeat. "I'll help you if I can, Malborn, but I'm not leaving."

In that moment, Malborn looks nothing so much as bleak and _old_. He has seen wretched things, and he despairs at your youth. "They'll kill you," he says, almost gently.

You're stupid. You're young and foolish. You know. "They'll try," you agree, oddly calm about the idea. "They might succeed. But I have to stay."

Mouth pressed, Malborn looks away. He glares at the far wall. " _Shit_ ," he whispers. "I suppose that's why you're the hero and I'm just a coward."

"You didn't ask for this," you reassure him, struck by pity.

"Of course I didn't," he snaps. The anger is reflexive; his expression is furrowed and far away.

"Malborn, listen. I want to help. I can't do very much on my own, but maybe I can find someone else. Maybe... You said there was an assassin outside the city. He's probably gone. And you've been in jail for months. If the Thalmor had anyone else inside the city, they wouldn't have waited _that_ long for you, would they?"

"They don't just have assassins, they have agents," Malborn says, in the tone of someone who has already said this too many times to count. "They have people everywhere. Watching, waiting, listening to everything. Yes, even in Windhelm. They can buy people, or kidnap a couple families. If I leave this Palace, the Thalmor will know. They probably already know. And some of their agents probably already have authorization to kill on sight."

"Did you tell Stormcloak that?"

" _Yes_. I told him and I _told_ him, and he doesn't believe me."

You don't even think before saying, “I'll talk to him.” It's only when Malborn snorts loudly that you hear the audacity of your own words.

Imagine: a Dunmer bending the ear of Ulfric Stormcloak, and succeeding. Imagine _you_ getting Stormcloak to heed. Asking a Jarl directly for help would be the most presumptuous thing you have ever done in the name of service to others. For Balgruuf and Elisif you did work and received due reward; for Stormcloak, you rely on his hospitality and then demand yet more. Do you even have the right to ask?

But you owe Malborn. You have to try.

Frowning distantly, you fret with the edge of the blanket in your lap. So if you _do_ convince Stormcloak to take Malborn's concerns seriously… then what? The major problem is getting Malborn to Morrowind alive. You yourself don't have the ability to protect him on the journey, and you doubt he's willing to wait in Windhelm for Azura knows how long it will take Tethyls to fix your hand, to make you into the archer you once were. Even then, your nightmares and screaming will still be a problem. And there's the possibility that even with your hand healed, your _mind_ might be the thing to buckle when confronted with a Thalmor assassin. All it would take is a mage who could cast lightning...

You need Stormcloak to send some of his soldiers with Malborn to the border. But how can you convince him it's a beneficial use of resources already stretched so thin?

“What's the shortest route to Morrowind?” you ask, frowning absently. The shape of a plan is forming, though you don't like it.

“The Refugees’ Road. Due east and through the mountains. It's how they all got here in the first place.” Malborn squints suspiciously. “What? _What_ are you thinking?”

Azura, you wish so _badly_ that you could escort him yourself; that way, you could promise Malborn for true that you would protect him with your life. The idea of sending him out alone with guards you don't know makes your nerves twist. But this is the only plan you have, and the only way to make Malborn agree to your plan is to show him complete confidence. So you summon the image of your warpaint face and smile like the Nose-of-Fox, sharp and clever, creature most cunning.

“I'm going to get Stormcloak to send soldiers with you to the border. They'll get you there safely.”

Malborn groans explosively in disgust. “For a moment I thought you had an actual plan. I forgot all your ideas are terrible. _He_ _won't do it_.”

“He will.”

“Why would he?”

You tell him.

Malborn shrieks with raw, wordless outage. “You said you were trying to save my life, not _get me killed_!” he shouts, his hands in savage claws that would be strangling your neck if you were within reach. “ _I don't want to die_.”

“You're not going to die,” you insist.

“I _am_ going to die, you're going to get me killed!”

“Stormcloak wouldn't send unfit soldiers, not for something like this. They'll protect you!”

“Against a Thalmor assassin?”

“ _Yes_.”

“No. No, no, _no_. I'm done risking my neck and letting people talk me into terrible ideas and, and _use_ me for—”

“Can you think of a better plan?” you shout. Malborn's accusation of being used strikes you hard, and _hurts—_ because it's true. The only way you can imagine Stormcloak sacrificing his own men is if Malborn agrees to be used once again, a pawn in yet another bloody game where the ones manipulating him will not suffer the consequences.

(Well. Delphine suffered eventually, didn't she, when you gave her up to Elenwen, but she thought she'd be safe enough by sending you and Malborn in her stead. You wonder when she discovered... _no_. No. Don't think of that.)

“ _Any_ other plan!”

“Another way to convince Stormcloak to send his soldiers with you?”

“We can hire someone else,” Malborn says wildly.

“Believe me, I've tried. There's nobody.” Nobody you would trust more than Stormcloak's soldiers, rather. You couldn't ask Niranye, not for danger like this, and you've no real evidence that the Grey Quarter's mercenaries are as good as their word. Certainly the boy-faced Korjarr met no standard of quality, much as you pitied him.

“Why are you in charge of the plan, anyway?” demands Malborn. “What do you know about fighting the Thalmor? Successfully, I mean. You didn't exactly make it as a spy."

“I’m a terrible spy,” you admit, just _barely_ able to stop it from being a confession, a plea for forgiveness. “But I’m a very good hunter. And this is a trap. It will work.”

“It makes me bait!”

“Tell me if you can think of another way, then,” you challenge. “I mean it. If you can think of something, we'll do it.”

Visibly grinding his teeth, Malborn folds his arms over his chest and glowers at the wall behind your head.

As if his resentment didn't make your skin crawl, you settle in to wait and turn your own mind to the task as well. You truly would prefer to come up with a better plan if one is possible.

“He'll never agree,” Malborn says at last, an hour later. Unable to come up with a more appealing plan, he has settled on the bulwark of Stormcloak's refusal as his security. “Go ahead, tell him your stupid idea. I want to see Ulfric Stormcloak laugh.”

 

* * *

 

Stormcloak stares down at the enormous map in his war room, scrutinizing the stretch of distance between Windhelm and the tiny stylized tower at the Morrowind border that represents Malborn's freedom. His face could be carved from the same granite as his fortress, and is just as empty of expression.

Beside you, Galmar waits with his arms folded expectantly. When you had asked a guard if it was possible for you to see Stormcloak, she had dragged you before Galmar instead, and he had insisted on hearing your words before he would even consider disturbing the Jarl. His glare had made you wonder frantically what you could have done to insult him. But after far too many barked questions and dubious hums, Galmar had finally uttered, “ _Hunh_ ,” and eyed Malborn with mercenary speculation. When he said, “Come on, then, I haven't got all day,” you had been equally relieved and horrified that Stormcloak's ruthless old bear agreed it was appealing to put Malborn's neck on the block again.

“Aye,” says Stormcloak, slowly. “It could work.”

Malborn lets out an agonized moan.

“Have heart!” Galmar barks, grinning savagely. “If those these Thalmor of yours are really out there, we're going to put their heads on a pike.” He slaps Malborn on the shoulder in a way that looks cruel, though it's obviously meant to be encouraging. You don't believe he really took Malborn's welfare into account as _any_ part of considering this plan. You are a _wretched_ , vile person.

“And even if no Thalmor shows, Malborn still gets to Morrowind,” you insist, terrified that Galmar and Stormcloak will let this crucial part of the deal fall through unless you hold it in place every inch of the way.

Galmar shoots you an impatient look. “Yes, yes.”

“No matter _what_.”

“Yes,” Stormcloak says, before Galmar can snap at you.

“Please,” you say, bracing yourself for the effort it takes to insist. “Please, Jarl Stormcloak, give me your word.”

Stormcloak draws a long, slow breath, staring you in the eye. “On my word as a Nord. My soldiers will do everything in their power to get Malborn to the border of Morrowind alive, no matter what else happens.”

“Thank you,” you whisper, nearly unable to speak.

“And you'll do your part,” Stormcloak says, turning to Malborn with abrupt hardness. “You won't flee the first chance you get. Swear it to me on the Dragonborn's life.”

Why... why would Stormcloak ask him to swear on _you_? Why not on Malborn's own life, which he struggles so hard to protect?

But Malborn is gritting his teeth and nodding, his face a grimace of endurance against great pain. “I swear it,” he bites out. Then he looks at you and adds, “I hate you.”

“You'll... be fine,” you say, feeling sick and weak.

The confidence of only an hour ago has abandoned you, as if Galmar and Stormcloak’s agreement with this plan has made you realize how terrible it must be. What madness made you think you had any right to gamble with Malborn's life _again_ , when you all but destroyed him the first time? What reason do you have to believe that Stormcloak's soldiers can really protect him, except that they're _Stormcloak's_? What if you've just consigned Malborn to slow death at the knives of a Thalmor on some icy road? And if you’ve gotten Stormcloak’s soldiers killed as well, what will he do to you in response? _Stupid_. Wretched. _Useless—_

“ _Out_ ,” Galmar interrupts. “We've got work to do, and you're no part of it. No—you come with me, elf,” he adds, grabbing Malborn's arm. “Seems I have to find you a bloody escort.”

“Oh _good_ ,” Malborn says, the weakest impression of his sardonic bite, and lets himself be marched out of the war room.

You don't realize that you've been standing frozen in place, staring vacantly at the dust motes floating over the war map, until Stormcloak's voice breaks through your daze.

“Lleros,” he says, heavy and low. The nigh-imperceptible shiver of Voice beneath the syllables of your own name sends a shocking tingle through your blood.

“I'm sorry,” you say automatically. “I'll—go. I should go. No. Thank you.”

“Stop,” he says, and you freeze instantly, as if he had roared it. But Stormcloak's stare is... not gentle, no, but nowhere near as angry as he has a right to be with you, who have demanded so much of him and repaid him with nothing but trouble. For some reason, he is looking at you with penetrating concern. “Stop apologizing.”

All you can rasp is, “I've burdened you.” You grew up in the Reach, your village a mountainous niche out of time with the progress of Imperial influence, where Skyrim's old traditions ruled as strongly as they still do here in Windhelm, the cradle of Nordic history. You know that overtaxing the generosity of one’s host is a deadly crime. “I am... I haven't said enough that I'm grateful. I owe you—”

“My help was offered freely,” Stormcloak scowls, growing frustrated. It's exactly the opposite of what you intended. How can he be insulted by your gratitude but not your insufferable difficulty? “I didn't do it to put you in my debt. I don't ask the service of men and women bent to my will by _obligation_. I don't want your thanks.”

Panic grabs you by the throat. You are on thin ice and it is cracking. Nothing is safe. The last grab for escape you have is to cry out, “Then what _do_ you want?”

Recoiling, Stormcloak draws deep breath but suddenly seizes himself before it erupts. The two of you are left staring at each other. You couldn't break from his eyes if you tried.

“Don't bend your head to me,” he utters at last, eyes burning, voice raw. There is a scraped edge of ferocity in his voice, but you cannot for the life of you fathom _why_ your weakness should be the thing that Ulfric Stormcloak rouses himself to defend. “Don't scrape and bow. You have the blood of a dragon and the breath of Kyne. You are _Dovahkiin—_ are you not?”

Low, bitter, you begin to laugh. It comes from the spoiled black place in your chest, the emotional wound that makes you ache with misery by night and wilt with emptiness by day. Stormcloak takes a step back.

“Dovahkiin,” you repeat bleakly. “That’s never stopped me from failing before.”

His expression grows wary. It’s not an emotion that belongs on a rebel-king’s face. Azura, what a disappointment you are.

But all Stormcloak says, at last, is, “Failing once doesn’t mean you can’t succeed in the future. No tale worth telling was ever simple.”

There was a time when you believed your life had become something out of a story. After a childhood of emulating and yearning for heroes both Nordic and Dunmer, you had greeted the revelation of your dragon soul with brief shock and then unfettered delight. Now, though, you cringe to think of the things you’ve said and done being retold to others, writ large in history for all to see.

All the same, Stormcloak’s words are an encouragement. It's less effective than he meant, and completely baffling, but not something you can reject. “Perhaps,” you agree, struggling to summon the shade of a smile. “As long as Malborn lives, I’ll be satisfied.”

“We'll get him to the border alive. Don’t doubt Galmar. And don’t doubt me.”

 _There_ is the prickliness you’ve come to expect from Stormcloak. So soon on the heels of his encouragement! Smiling bitterly, you tell him, “I was doubting myself.” You bow slightly. “I know you’re very busy, Jarl Stormcloak. I’ll leave you be.”

The guard by the door glares when you exit. You haven’t learned to distinguish them all from one another, not beneath their helms, but you have a feeling she’s far from the only one who has come to loathe you.

After all these days, you’re still uncertain of your welcome in any part of the Palace. (Except perhaps the kitchens, now. But you can't hide beneath Sifnar's feet all day.) Much as you hate the idea of idling away another day, you retreat back to your room.

At least you have travel gear to clean. Mother would twist your ear for letting it sit for two days. You lay everything out on the floor and start by reinforcing the worn bottom of your second-hand pack with scrape-softened rawhide. One of the uncured deerskins you've had since your days in the cave is starting to look so mangy that there's nothing for it but to be cut up for scraps.

Malborn stumbles into your room unannounced when you're rubbing bear grease into the seams of your boots. You startle so badly that you almost upset the dish of warm grease into the fire.

" _Don't_ ," you snarl, wiping at the pool of grease before it can run into the embers.

" _You_ don't," Malborn snipes back. "I've been pulled around by my short hairs all day by Galmar Stone-Fist himself and I don't have much time right now. Be quiet and listen."

"Don't—"

" _Shush_!" Malborn shrieks.

His genuine distress makes you blink and withdraw from anger to shame. Gods, he must be feeling wretched, surrounded by soldiers barely one step up from enemies and about to be thrust back into the Thalmor's talons as bait. Before you can inquire sympathetically, Malborn drops to his knees on the hearth before you and sets his chin.

"They're having me leave tonight," he says. "Right now. I leave alone, go out, buy supplies, and show my face around like an absolute ninny for a couple hours so the Thalmor agents have a chance to notice. Then I meet two soldiers in the marketplace, we all complain nice and loud about being released from jail, and then pretend we've decided to travel together. We're going to try to buy a horse from the stables without enough coin just in case the agent's working in the stables."

"That's good. You won't be outside alone for long, then."

"No, I'll be with these _soldiers_ ," Malborn growls. " _Listen_. Stone-Fist might be about to come collar me again. I want to talk to you about Ulfric. I know he's letting you stay here, but do you know why? Can you trust him?"

"He wants me on his side. To fight for him."

"Yes, but do you _trust_ him? What's he done to make you believe that?"

Astonished, you say slowly, "He invited me here. He's letting me live under his roof, eat his bread—"

"You just said that was because he's trying to get you on his side," Malborn says, full of condescending pity. "What _else_?"

"I have guest-right." You spread your hands helplessly. There's nothing else to say if Malborn doesn't understand the depth of that tradition.

"You heroic _child_ ," Malborn says, almost mournful. "He gave you his word and you think that's it. You think that'll really get me to the border alive."

"He said—"

"He's a king-killing warlord with a silver tongue, and I'm a boot-licking Thalmor traitor," Malborn says, pitying but merciless as a bear trap. "And you're a tool to him. For all we know, his soldiers have orders to cut my throat and leave me in the ditch with the Thalmor agent. It's safer than letting me walk away, that's for sure. He could still tell you that I made it to Morrowind safe and sound. And you'd never know the difference."

The ice has cracked. Nowhere is safe. You've fallen through. You're numb.

Malborn grabs you by the chin, forcing you to look at him. " _Don't_. I need you with me, do you hear? Listen to me. Look at this."

He shoves something into your hands: a bracelet of braided rag, the same colour as his ratty shirt. No, the strips _were_ torn from the hem of his shirt.

"I'm going to take it with me, and when they're about to leave me at the Morrowind border, I'm going to give this to the soldiers and tell them to give it back to you. If they tell you I made it but they don't bring this back, you'll know they're lying. If they do bring it back, then... well, you'll still be a tool, but at least you'll know for sure you can trust Ulfric. If they tell you they did their best but I died on the way..." His smile is more of a grimace. "You'd better ask to see the body."

You press the bracelet into Malborn's palm and grip his hand for dear life. Struggling against the lump in your throat, you choke out, "I don't want you to die."

He slaps your hand, looking more distressed by your weeping than anything else. "I don't want me to die either. Stop that. Stop that right now."

You break away to scrub your eyes with a scrap of rawhide and smear face paint everywhere. After a moment, Malborn awkwardly squeezes your shoulder.

"Don't try to be a spy again," he says, not unkindly. "You're terrible at it. And if you do make a break for Morrowind, come find me. Look for Aenir—though I should warn you, there's a thousand Aenirs out there. Otherwise... stay alive. Do what you have to. Spit in their faces if you can."

Before you can say goodbye, he's gone.

 

* * *

 

Desperate for distraction, you fumble at oiling your boots, spot-cleaning your clothes, coiling your rope—until you get to your dagger. Sharpening stone in hand, you look at the blade, feel your heart explode, and then find yourself doubled over and wheezing for breath.

Midway through, you give up fighting for control. Why fight? You should suffer. You curl up on your side to let the terror wrack you. Panic gives way to grief, with every fatalistic voice in your soul telling you that Malborn is _already_ dead, and you cry until you cannot cry any longer.

The stone floor makes you shiver uncontrollably, feeling manacles around your wrists. You crawl onto the bedside rug.

You want to pray, but all your grasping hands find is your amulet of Kynareth. She is not enough. Not now.

Wearing the deepest hood you can find in the room's wardrobe, you slink down to the Temple of Talos. All you really want is an amulet, or barring that, a tiny shrine: something small, private, but real enough to touch. Something holy you can clutch until your knuckles ache, rub your thumbs across until the relic grows warm and your tremors bleed out into solid, reassuring stone.

There's no privacy to be had in Windhelm's temple. Worse, you have to hope that nobody takes it upon themselves to throw you out, and you hate it.

The temple is thankfully near empty. Hunched over your knees in the back pew, you stare up at the sunlit statue and pray out your heart's unfocused tangle of fear and yearning. The slim chance that a Divine might be hearing you is all that keeps your chest from feeling like it's going to burst again.

A few minutes later, the priestess settles into the pew beside you. "Blessings of Talos be upon you," she whispers. "You look unwell, my friend."

"I just need to stay here a while. Please."

"You can stay as long as you like. All are welcome to honor Talos. Do you... wish to tell me about your struggle? If you want, I can help you pray for a while."

Her gentleness nearly breaks you. Eyes squeezed shut, you nod helplessly. "I need," you waver, and swallow. "I need a reason to trust."

For a handful of minutes, she sits by you and murmurs, half prayer for Talos and half sermon for you. It's about trust and faith, proving one's worth and being honorable. It doesn't come close to encompassing the way your soul could scream for Ulfric Stormcloak to be not just a good general and a good politician, but _good_. Still, the priestess' voice is low and warm and soothing, and that might be worth as much as the shrine itself to the faithful who come seeking help.

When she finishes, you ask if she can give you an amulet of Talos. You could kiss her for not looking surprised that a greyskin would want one. She trades your donation of silver for mold-cast iron.

Settled by the priestess' voice and the rub of iron beneath your thumb, you sit and pray for as long as you can. All the while, you can't stop thinking, _Malborn will have met the soldiers by now. Malborn will be at the stables by now. Malborn will be on the road by now_. But you manage to hold yourself together, if only because it's too late for you to intervene.

After seven bells, the temple begins to fill with Nords. You field several truly filthy glances before deciding that staying any longer isn't worth it. Fist clenched around your amulet, you leave, and slip back into the Palace.

In Stormcloak's hall, the servants are laying the board for dinner. The scent of hot mutton makes your stomach twist; you haven't eaten since breakfast and crying is exhausting. It hurts to duck your head and hurry out of the hall before Stormcloak might see you.

In the stairwell, though, a voice hails you. "Dragonborn! A moment." It takes you a moment to remember the name of the man who catches up to you at the top of the stairs: Yrsarald, you think. The one who pressed you to see Wuunferth in the wizard's cramped, reeking cell of a room. He still looks at you with that vaguely pitying kindness.

"I've been needing to catch you since you got back," he says. "You don't come to meals, though. You know you're welcome at Ulfric's table, eh?"

Yes, if you want to give Stormcloak the chance to work on persuading you, or worse, questioning you. Neither appeals. Right now, you don't think you could look him in the eye, knowing he might have encouraged your strength with one breath and, with the next, ordered Malborn's death behind your back.

"Do you need me for something?" you ask, though you want nothing more than to escape.

"Not really. No, I have something for you."

Baffled, you hesitantly hold out your hand to accept what Yrsarald digs from beneath the bear-paw clasp of his mantle. A snake of silver chain coils into your palm, smooth as river water. On the chain is...

"Effra guide me," you whisper.

Saint Effra's outstretched palm is carved into the centre of the ebony disk, visible only when light catches in its graven hollow. The hand in the dark, Effra has been called. A shrine sergeant, formerly of little note, whose figure had appeared to people fleeing the cataclysm of the Red Mountain and guided them through the blinding ash to safety. After the crisis, Effra was never seen again. She was canonized almost immediately, in one of the Temple's scrambling attempts to begin reunifying a people shattered by cataclysm.

Your father has said that some Dunmer believe she was still alive while escorting people through the ashfall, or that her appearances were actually the work of many different heroic Dunmer, and that either way such actions were hardly miraculous. "But I know better," he always added, leaning in to murmur it like a cherished secret. "I saw her in a dream _before_ the destruction came. It wasn't until I heard a woman preaching Effra's creed in Cyrodiil that I knew just who sent me that vision. Make no mistake, Lleros, I was guided. _We_ are guided."

You've been told that for as long as you can remember, and you've invoked her name without thinking more times than you know. But you've never believed so strongly as right now.

You clutch the amulet so hard that it cuts into even the hard callus of your palm. The amulet of Talos in your pocket weighs heavier than it ought. Yrsarald's face blurs from the unexpected sting of tears. You struggle to keep them from falling. Gods, how much damned water do you have to leak today? "Thank you."

He looks deeply uncomfortable. "It's nothing," he says gruffly. "Don't thank me. It was... It's just that everyone should have their gods when they need them."

"And how I need them now," you joke, attempting a distraction from your rapid blinking.

"Ah," Yrsarald mutters. He tugs the short hairs of his beard and shifts from one foot to the other. "Yes, well." He tugs his beard one last time so hard that it must hurt, and seems to come to a decision. "Dragonborn, listen. The... the dreams you have..."

You are mortified. "I'm so sorry. I don't mean to be so—to cause such a—I've got a sleeping poison that should help to keep me quiet."

"No! No. That's not what I mean. Or..." He can't seem to meet your eye. "Myself, I don't sleep so well every night, either. You know."

"...Oh."

"All I wanted to say was... Ach. People don't like to talk about it. They say a real warrior can handle battle, that no true fighter gets the Legionary’s disease."

You wince. He pulls his beard again, teeth clenched, seemingly no less hurt by his own words.

"But as I see it, it's not so rare for people to come out of hard things with their minds changed. Our stories are full of it. Jurgen Windcaller himself walked away from the Battle of Red Mountain shaken to his core. And by my thinking, a man doesn't spend seven years locked away in silence if he's not struggling to heal from a great wound."

"The War?" you ask, then wince at your own stupidity. He no more wants to speak of his own pain than you do of yours.

Yrsarald's jaw clenches. "Yes."

"What did you... How did you get better?" This is scarcely a kinder question, but you are desperate to know.

Yrsarald is silent for a long moment before he answers. "I left everything behind. Couldn't stay in Windhelm. Enrolled in the Bards College and got as far away from swords as I could. For years I just... read. Studied. And I wrote about what I saw on the battlefield. For my final examination to be granted my title as a recognized bard, I wrote a saga about the War. Not like the heroic stories, though. Like it really happened."

He chuckles a little. "Giraud Gemane wanted to deny me the title. Said my saga was an insult to poetry, to history itself! Said it showed I hadn't understood anything he'd tried to teach. The other Deans argued for me, thankfully. Headmaster Viarmo said that bards _record_ history, not make it, and they couldn't punish me for recording the history I'd seen."

Despite how raw Yrsarald clearly is about this subject, you can't help being disappointed. "That's it, then."

He snorts. "That's never it. I don't know that it ever stops. The dreams, the... the sickness. All of it. All I can tell you is that you're not the only one."

Full of guilt for dismissing his words, you fold your hands formally, the amulet of Effra pressed between them, and bow your head. "Thank you. Truly."

Unexpectedly, Yrsarald claps you on the shoulder. It's rough affection, soldierly, uncomfortable but genuine. "Like I said, there's no need. But I have to excuse myself. I've other things to take care of."

"Wait," you say, before you think. "If you have a moment... I have a question. You went to the College to study law?"

Yrsarald shrugs. "Yes. Law, history, writing, poetry. Never was much for the musical side of it. I'm Ulfric's law-keep these days."

You exhale a long breath and squeeze your hands to steady them. Of the many questions you have about Ulfric Stormcloak and his war, this is one of the most important. Now more than ever, you want... well. There's no reassurance to be had. But an answer. Solid ground to stand on.

“Was it legal?” you ask. “Stormcloak killing Torygg, I mean. I’ve heard people say one way or the other. I don’t know the law well enough to tell for myself.”

Yrsarald hums beneath his breath, looking pensive rather than angry, as you’d feared he might be. “Mm. Well. Problem is that there’s more than one set of laws in this land. Imperial law says it’s murder, no question. Regicide, they call it. Treason, too.”

The skeptical swerve of his eyebrows say what he thinks about that.

“But the old ways of Skyrim give means for a man or woman to challenge their king, no matter whether they’re a peasant or a Jarl like Ulfric. Time was, holding the High King’s throne meant holding the entire land together, defending it from division both without and within. It took a strong ruler to do that. And if anyone felt the High King wasn’t fit for the task, it was their right and their duty to replace him and give Skyrim the ruler it deserved.”

“Which is what Stormcloak wants.”

“By right of martial challenge, aye. Now Torygg had a choice, see. Imperial laws and the old ways don’t always agree on what’s to be done about any particular circumstance. Some things that work in Cyrodiil don’t work here. Some things that _happen_ in Skyrim don’t have any Imperial law to cover them. Like challenging the Emperor to a duel. It’s always been the Empire’s policy to give its provinces some leeway in interpreting the law, as long as it means there’s less fuss overall. In Morrowind, for example, there was a long history of slavery even after they joined the Empire.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“...Yes, well. In Skyrim, it’s up to the Jarls which set of laws they tend to favour. Local magistrates and headsmen are supposed to follow the direction of their Jarls. In Solitude, they favour Imperial law. Ulfric favors the old ways. It’s always a question of which way Balgruuf will lean. He’s got his own sense of what’s right, and he invokes the laws that suit his needs. I’m not saying he’s wrong," Yrsarald adds. "Just that he’s difficult to predict.”

“Anyway. High King Torygg accepted Ulfric’s challenge. Legally speaking, he signalled his decision to abide by the old laws of Skyrim rather than the Imperial laws. Not in all matters, of course, but in the matter of the duel. Which means he also accepted the possibility that he might lose. So much as the Imperials might say Torygg was murdered, they’re wrong. Killed, yes. But his death was no crime. And the Bards College will agree. There's too much legal precedent in Skyrim's history to declare otherwise.”

A long time ago—had it been almost a year?—you had dinner with Queen Elisif. Keenly aware of how out of place you were, you had made an effort not to speak on the war, or on the ghost of Torygg’s absence that haunted the Blue Palace. But Elisif had raised his death herself, in asking about your Voice and your pilgrimage to the Greybeards. You had listened, helpless and hurting, as she described how her husband had died. Broken, she had said. His skull smashed against his own throne by the force of Stormcloak’s Shout. He might have been committed to slow death, you thought, even before Stormcloak ran him through. Maybe that was even a kind of battlefield mercy.

A crime? No, apparently. That doesn’t make it less of a tragedy. It doesn’t make Elisif's grief less real, or Stormcloak’s undertaking less destructive. And it doesn’t mean that the countless people you’ve spoken to, across the vast and varied breadth of Skyrim, are any more or less justified in the reasons they have for fighting the war. Or hating the war.

“What were you hoping the answer would be?” Yrsarald asks, bringing you back to reality. There’s a criticality in his eyes that you haven’t seen from him before. No matter his sympathy toward you, he is still one of Stormcloak's commanders.

“I don’t know,” you say honestly. “I think… I just wanted it to be simple.”

Weariness falls over Yrsarald's face, fit to match the way you feel. "None of that to be found," he says, claps you on the shoulder again, and leaves.

You return to your room.

You wait.

 

* * *

 

Eight days later, the agony ends: there's a knock at your door. You fling it open, a little wild-eyed. Expecting it to be another invitation to dine with Stormcloak—another summons you'll have to decline, claiming illness, anxious that this will be the resistance that gets you thrown out—you almost don't hear the guard say _in the hall_.

Stormcloak has never invited you for dinner in his great hall. This is other news.

Heart racing, you arrive in the hall and lose what little breath you had left. There are two fur-clad women in front of the throne, heads bent to conversation with Galmar and Stormcloak on his throne. You almost can't feel your feet carry you forward.

Stormcloak notices you approach. His face is thunderous—but gods, _why_? If he thinks you look remarkably well for a man who's been too sick to eat for over a week, he says nothing, only gestures to the soldiers with an open palm: _Here, Dragonborn, see. I've kept my word_.

"What happened?" you ask.

Both soldiers glance to Stormcloak for permission to speak. "Damn bloody Thalmor," says one, and you recognize Asda's familiar heavy accent. "Malborn was right. They had an agent. Tried to ambush us on the third day."

"Is he alive?"

"Deader than Ysmir's bearskin," says Asda.

Your heart drops through the floor. All this for nothing. All this—everything you did to Malborn before, and now you've sent him to his death.

"How," you croak. "Did the, the Thalmor..."

"What? No, the Thalmor's dead, I said."

" _Malborn_."

"Not a scratch," Asda says, then grabs your arm. "Hey, steady. Are you all right?"

"Still sick, I'm afraid," you say, trying to smile. Without the warring forces of shock and sudden relief crashing over you, you actually do feel nauseated. "You got him to Morrowind all right, then? He's safe?"

"Safe as he can be," Asda reassures you. "Just like Jarl Ulfric ordered."

A shard of fear stabs you. "He didn't... have any goodbyes? Nothing to say?"

The other woman snorts. "He was glad to go. Just about ran across the border."

_If they tell you I made it but they don't bring this back—_

"Aye, and forgot this," Asda says, digging in her pocket. "Came running back down the road after us a few minutes later, saying we had to bring this back."

And she puts Malborn's ragged bracelet in your hand.

"Forgetful, isn't he," says the other soldier, her mouth twisted. "You'd think if it was so damn important, he'd have remembered to give it to us first."

"Oh, yes," you say faintly. It's a struggle not to grin like an idiot, not to laugh out loud. "Yes, he must have forgotten."

"A bit of rag?" demands Galmar, leaning in to see. "What's so important about that?"

"It's a Bosmer tradition," you lie. "They, ah, they have to send something back to family living at home as soon as they settle in a new place. A gift, a trinket. Usually nicer than this, I think. For luck. I suppose I'm the only one he has to send anything to."

You're still smiling like an idiot at the bracelet, full of softness and relief like you haven't been in weeks. Months. Malborn is alive, and safe, and you did that.

You and Ulfric did that.

"Jarl Ulfric," you say, looking up, lifting your chin to meet him head-on. His eyes bite like grey ice. He's still cold on his throne, still hard and frustrated, yet... for the first time, the sight of his face doesn't bring you anger or fear. He might be many things, but he has done something _good_ for you, something costly and unwise, for no other reason than that he promised to. "I know you don't want my obligation, but... this isn't that. You did what I couldn't. I am grateful. Thank you. I will not forget this."


	16. Lleros (12)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I have _not_ abandoned this story-- I'm sorry I seem to have scared quite a few of you! It's just that my laptop's motherboard spontaneously exploded and the repair bill was too expensive to pay, so I've not had a laptop to write on for the past few months. Now I have a keyboard that I can hook up to my phone. At last I can type properly again! Next chapter is already in the works.

How long do you lie awake that night, sprawled on the hearthside rug and grinning? You can’t sleep for giddy joy; you just stare up at the roof beaming, twisting Malborn’s rag bracelet around your wrist and thinking _safe, safe, safe, safe and alive, he’s safe and alive and **you did that**_. You and Ulfric did that. Ulfric did that for you. It fills you up like mulled wine, hot and sweet, all in your chest and your heart fit to burst.

Malborn’s alive and you saved him. Malborn is safe because Ulfric listened to you. Ulfric listened because you asked.

But you have to sleep, because in the morning you’ll dine with Ulfric. He asked last evening after giving you the news about Malborn and you said _Of course, yes, of course_ , flushed and beaming.

(In retrospect… ah, you think, it may have been less a request than an expectation thinly veiled with manners. But for all that you’ve tried his hospitality, he still said _will you_ , not _you will_. He’s been good to you in more ways than the obvious, hasn’t he.)

It’s as hard to sleep now as the night before Merchant’s Festival Day, and with just as much self-scolding that you’ll need your rest. You manage maybe four hours and scramble out of bed when you hear six bells, the first chime of the day, and the scrape and jingle of guards changing their posts.

You stoke up the fire to warm your chilly room, then move the washstand onto the hearth. When the water is steaming hot enough to prickle even your Dunmer skin, you strip out of your nightshirt. The palace’s piny green soap takes off the night’s clamminess from your skin.

After washing, you have the long task of rubbing salve into all of your scars. The salve is a bit of your own alchemy,worked while closed up in your room waiting for news of Malborn. It’s the sort of hedgewitch restoration that Bothela emphasized in your early apprenticeship: beeswax to soften the puckered ridges of your scars, canis root tincture to numb your skin, and oil of blue mountain flower to encourage healing. If there’s been any healing yet, you can’t see it. The scars twisting from ankle to wrists are stark as ever. You mumble half-mindless prayers to Dibella and try not to feel the lumpen ugliness beneath your fingers.

You ought to dress properly to meet with Ulfric, oughtn’t you. It’s embarrassing how he saw you huddled up in the kitchen, that night you returned to Windhelm, all damp and bedraggled from the snow. Even if you did also see _him_ in his night clothes, bare-chested beneath his overshirt.

None of the fine clothes in the wardrobe quite fit you, but you’re spoiled for choice of colour and embroidery. There’s a lovely blue tunic that brings out the blue in your skin, cool as shadows on water, and a dark wool vest with trim in cream and juniper-grey—Reach wool and Reach weaving, which you know well—and if you wrap your calves and lace your boots all the way to the knee, nobody will know your pants end four inches above the ankle.

Blast it, you need a new comb. Your fingers can’t part hair cleanly enough. You’ll have to go see Revyn.

—And you need a new journal, come to think of it. Maybe that will stop you forgetting all these little things, the minutiae of trying to reassemble your life into something functional. Effra only knows what Delphine did with your last journal. Maybe she destroyed it when it became clear you’d been captured. Maybe she still had it when the Thalmor came for her. Or maybe it’s hidden away in some cave with the rest of your belongings, wet and rotting, another forgotten cache left by the dead for some future adventurer to find and loot ten years from now.

A sudden pang of sadness hits hard enough that you go still, fingers faltering on a braid. _Sadness_ , not terror or grief or rage, not the usual choke of emotion that comes of remembering the Thalmor. Almost a… mourning for what they took.

It wasn’t just a log of errands, your journal. Between supply tallies and to-do lists, there were paragraphs abour your trimphs and failures, notes about your little quests, scrawlings about the people that you had met, whether they had asked you to fetch a sword or a told a funny story over ale. There were reminders to yourself scrawled in the margins, and alchemical recipes copied in careful script. You had sketched maps of roads too rural for cartographers to note, and sometimes landmarks in country too wild for roads. Here, a rubbing from a Nordic tomb; there, leaves pressed between the pages. There was blood on some pages, and tears, and dirt, and a river’s worth of water that had made the enchanted leather cover worth every silver, since it had held your ink fast despite the rapids. It was your whole journey, that book. And it’s gone.

Hjanna knocks on the door, then, asking if you're awake, and did you sleep well, and the Jarl is ready for you.

You think you might be ready to see him, too.

Ulfric also asks after your sleep, as he pours hot cider for both of you. On the table there’s steaming fresh bread, sliced sausage, boiled hen’s eggs, shelled autumn nuts, warm applesauce and _skyr_ , all within reach, but you keep your hands twisted in your lap out of nerves. Breakfast laid for two at the small table in Ulfric’s own bed chamber is _not_ what you expected, and no, no, you’re not ready at all.

“Very well,” you say, nodding nervously. “Better than I have in a long time.”

“Good,” he says, nodding, as if your sleep merited such grave consideration.

You fidget, then blurt. “I— Jarl Ulfric, I wanted to say again, thank you. For what you did for Malborn.” His response is visible in his frowning eyes even before he speaks, and it’s not right, he doesn’t understand, so you add in a rush, “I know, I know you said you don’t want my gratitude, but that’s just it. That’s why. You didn’t have to save his life, you didn’t _want_ to, but I asked, and you did it anyway. That is no small thing to me. It’s… been a long time since I could protect anyone.”

“Is that what I did?” Ulfric asks, looking at you sidelong. “Save his life?” After a long moment, his frown eases into a tiredness you didn’t expect. “It’s been a long time since I saved any lives, either. Protecting Skyrim seems to demand only that I sacrifice them, much as I might wish otherwise.”

Startled, you toy with your fork. Ulfric has food on his plate, so you take bread of your own for something to do.

“You want to protect Skyrim as well,” Ulfric says. “In your own way. I’ve heard the stories.”

Your stomach twists, but you lift your head to meet the mantle, because, gods help your weak will, you _do_ want to help. To make things better. And… Ulfric sees that? He sees more than a wretch or a greyskin in you?

“I did my best,” you agree, and only waver a little. “I mean, it wasn’t _good_ , I was— I was stupid and reckless and—”

“It was good. I’ve heard the stories.”

Face burning, you mumble, “Thank you,” which feels utterly inadequate. It’s impossible to refute the conviction in Ulfric’s voice, the assured certainty of a king, even though it’s ill-bestowed on you.

“Then you know why I ask your allegiance,” Ulfric says, and leans forward to catch your gaze again. The pale light of morning shines through his irises, ice-grey and piercing. You couldn’t deny him your attention if you wanted to. “War may be the only way to free Skyrim, but it’s not the way to heal her. It protects her soul, but not her people. The sooner it ends in victory, the better.”

There is a lump in your throat. “I have said,” you begin carefully, “I want to help—I do—but I don’t know if I _can_. As I am now…” You burn with shame. “And if I choose a side in the war, if I abandon half of Skyrim…”

“Have you met the people fighting this war?” Ulfric asks abruptly.

“Of course I have.”

“Then you know their faith. The true sons and daughters of Skyrim, they rose to my call because they believed my cause—the cause of a free Skyrim—was worthy. And more would rise to the call of the Dragonborn.”

Something in that logic strikes you like a splinter, twisted from the flaw in his argument. Ulfric’s voice draws you in, strong and certain, pulling you to agree—-but that _flaw_...

“And those who didn’t rise to your call?” you say. “They’re not also of Skyrim? Not _true_ Nords?” Irony twists the words, coming as they are from your grey lips.

“There are plenty who agree with the Empire’s ways,” Ulfric says, steady as water flowing right around a river rock. “Those who aren’t ready to give up the safety of Imperial walls, and go to an uncertain future in war. But are they safe in their hesitation, Dragonborn? Will the Emperor protect them when the Thalmor come?"

You flinch backwards, drawing a sharp breath. Ulfric’s expression, when you can focus on him again, is gently regretful—sorrowed, even, for you, for these Nords who love the Empire— but unrelenting. All that regret won’t stop him from striking you with a truth he thinks you need to hear.

As if you don’t know goddamn _enough_ about what happens when the Thalmor come.

“They don’t all fight for faith,” you reply roughly. “ _You_ might, but all your true Nords, they’re not as pure as that. I’ve met as many as you. There’s plenty of soldiers out there because an Imperial killed their sister and now they’ve got to kill an Imperial’s sister back, and it’s got nothing to do with Skyrim. Plenty of them out for elf blood. Or out in your tents for food and shelter because the harvest didn’t half come in last year. And plenty stay home because someone has to farm, or they've got children, or they can't lose another sister. War’s not about _faith_.”

You expect him to snap back, to draw blood now that you’ve broken the peace, and in your anger you almost want him to. All Ulfric does, though, is nod, slow and tired once more.

“No,” he agrees. “It’s about stabbing them before they stab you. About killing everyone you see in the wrong colour, just because they’re in it. About seeing your brothers and sisters cut down because they couldn’t kill fast enough, leaving you in the blood and the bodies, to go back to their families and tell them why you’re alive and they’re not.”

He fought in the Great War, you recall, stupidly and much too late. As if _he_ doesn’t know enough about what war is.

That doesn’t make you wrong, but it doesn’t make Ulfric easier to deny, either.

You weren’t lying when you told Yrsarald you wanted this to be simple.

“So you know why this war has to be ended,” Ulfric says. “The longer it stretches, the bloodier Skyrim becomes, and the fewer defenders she has.”

“You don’t have enough soldiers already?” you demand, defensive and ashamed for no good reason you can name. The argument has circled once, and now you have to break through another line of it. You don’t believe Ulfric’s right about you fighting his war, you _don’t_ , but it’s still so hard to argue why not.

“Not as many as I need.”

“One more won’t make much of a difference.”

“If that one was the Dragonborn—”

“Not a very good one.”

“Good enough to slay the dragon of Kynesgrove,” Ulfric says, sharply. “And the dragon of Whiterun Tower, and Bonestrewn Crest, and a dozen others besides. Good enough that people spoke your name and told your deeds in more cities and towns than I could count. You may have done wrong, but I will not hear that Talos sent the world a Dragonborn who could do nothing.”

Unable to comprehend this anger, anger not at you, but— but _for_ you… unable to understand it, much less accept it, you look away. You can't bear how wrong Ulfric is, or how much you want him to be right.

“My hand,” you choke out. Is it explanation or excuse? Both. Terrible, the shame.

“You'll heal.”

Mute, you can only shake your head. Yes, your hand can be healed, but what then? What if you lose this excuse, only to discover that you're still not strong enough? You clutch your amulets and stare down at your plate, face hot and flushed. Across the table, Ulfric waits, but you _cannot_.

“Lleros,” he says at last.

Your breath stutters.

“Is the food not to your taste?”

You stare in pure bafflement.

“Eat,” Ulfric says, not unkindly, and lets you evade his expectations for another day.

You eat.

 

* * *

 

After you leave Ulfric to his business, you hurry to Revyn’s shop. You’re carrying more money than is ever wise, purse stuffed so full it can’t even jingle with the quicksilver and gold Enthir gave you. You’ve never been set upon or shaken down in Windhelm’s alleys, but all the same it’s a relief to reach the shop.

“Revyn, Revyn, Revyn,” you laugh, and throw your arms around him. He squawks and his feather duster sends filth everywhere. “We need a bottle, we have to celebrate, Revyn, I did it.”

“It’s not even _noon_ ,” he says, appalled, but the rag-shod girl loitering in the back room pops out to say, “ _I_ can get a bottle.”

Against Revyn’s reproaching, you give the girl some silver and send her running for brandy. He’s still protesting when she gets back (and returns no change for the bottle, but you’ve no doubt she needs it more than you).

“But I _did_ it,” you tell Revyn, peeling the wax seal with your thumb. “All the way up the coast, two whole weeks over a glacier, cold as the Void, but I got my money.”

“And didn’t bother to come tell me you were back,” he sniffs—but even as he does so, he’s fishing about on a shelf to come up with two rotund glasses. “None for you,” he tells the girl with a glare, which she returns. “I had to hear you were back from Niranye, and she wasn’t exactly forthcoming with details. Everything is all secrets with her. What in the Ancestors’ names even happened?”

“A toast first,” you insist. “Toast me, come on.”

“It’s _morning_ ,” he says, witheringly, as he taps his glass and drinks.

The brandy is warm and lovely, and it settles your nerves from breakfast. While Revyn dusts, you tell him about the journey, though not about Malborn, and complain about Enthir. It’s not long, though, before talking about healing your hand turns to fretting about the chirurgery. Mara’s mercy, Tethyls is going to take a knife to you; she’s going to cut you, slice you open, probably strip you bare and—

“That is enough,” Revyn says, swooping in to take the half-empty bottle away. You hadn’t even noticed yourself drinking so much. “Come here and make yourself useful.”

“You’re a wonderful friend,” you tell him, dizzy and relieved, patting his arm.

“I know.”

Cleaning old armour and polishing some very tarnished silverware takes all afternoon. Every time you finish one task, Revyn thrusts another at you, right down to patching his bedsheets. He says he refuses to let you go out and fret alone. Fretting with company, you think, is not much better. Fretting with brandy would be, but he refuses to let you do that, either.

It’s late evening by the time Revyn sends you out the door, sober and shaky, with another Dunmer child to escort you to to the chirurgeon’s house. “And don’t either of you mess around!”

Ten minutes later, your guide stops at the mouth of an alley of doors canopied by flapping laundry and faded yellow banners. There’s a heavy timber lintel braced over the street’s mouth, hung with lanterns of amber glass. Daedric letters chiselled into the Nordic stone suggest an entrance to some section of the city that you feel you should scarcely enter, foreign as you are.

“Here it is,” the boy prods, and thrusts out his hand for the payment Revyn made you promise not to give until arriving. Attempting a smile for his suspicious face, you hand over the septims. Quick as a snap, he dashes off, before you’ve remembered to ask, “Wait, which one?”

Well, you deserved that.

Without the plaque nailed over Tethyls Malonyn’s door—a graven image of the Restoration symbol on splintered planking, with a vertical line of Daedric characters beside it—you never would have discovered which one of the grimy doors in this long alley belonged to her. Awkward about disturbing a stranger at home, you hesitate before knocking.

The door cracks open. It takes you several seconds to notice the tiny red eye peering out from waist height.

She’s little. You have to restrain your anxiety. “I’m here to see Healer Tethyls,” you tell the wary eye, which blinks and permits you entry.

In the dim interior, you sketch a polite bow to the solemn-faced child. She still doesn’t speak but cracks a smile.

“Who is it, Melsu?”

Melsu points you at a room just off the cramped hall.

“Drals Vedran,” you answer, stepping tentatively into the room. Behind you, Melsu disappears up the stairs. “I’m here to see Tethyls.”

There’s a Dunmer woman in threadbare Adept's robes whom you’ve never met before. She scarcely flicks a glance at you before returning her attention to the woman sitting on a chair in front of her, also Dunmer. “Sit,” she orders distractedly, dabbing at the woman’s bloody brow with a rag. “There, it’s clean now.”

“Stupid snowback,” the woman mutters, as you take a seat on one of the creaky chairs by the door.

The healer starts work on the wide gash in the woman’s forehead, her palm pulsing gold. “What, did he try to refuse to pay you?”

The woman clicks her tongue disparagingly. “Oh, he paid. And I pulled his trousers down, and then I said, ‘No, here’s your money back, I’m not doing anything with that until you go to the temple and get it fixed.’” She hisses through her teeth as the healer prods at the wound to get the skin to ease back together properly. “He said that it was no good, every healer worth a damn had gone off to war. So I said, ‘Fine, then go to your temple and pray to Talos not to let you die with a rotten pecker.’”

The healer sighs. “And he didn’t like that much, did he.” She finishes in one last flare of gold light and reaches over for one of the clean rags soaking in a bowl of what smells like thistle brew. “Dunbrys, you shouldn’t say things like that.”

Abruptly Dunbrys smacks the healer away and gets to her feet. “Don’t lecture me on my work when I’m paying you for yours!”

“I’m not—” The healer holds out a placating hand. “I just want you to be safe.”

After a moment, Dunbrys deflates, the absence of sudden rage leaving her exhausted. She lets the healer wipe the last of the blood off her forehead and check for any lingering damage. “There’s nothing safe out there,” she says with a crooked smile.

“If you end up having to stab one of those fetchers, I’m not sure I’ll be able to fix what the guards do to you. But there, that’s done now.”

After Dunbrys leaves without a glance in your direction—so few strangers in this city ever make eye contact—the healer turns to you in judgement. “You don’t look like you’re bleeding.”

You clench your right fist half-consciously. “It’s an old injury. Healer Tethyls said she could...”

“Oh. _Vedran_. That’s where I remembered that name from.” Suddenly she’s smiling, her whole aspect softened and warmed. “Of course! I’m Bedarie Othas, her apprentice. Tethyls is upstairs having supper. Make yourself comfortable, please! I’ll get her right away.”

It’s nerve-wracking to be recognized when you’re supposed to be in hiding, but you suppose it’s reasonable that Tethyls might have gossiped about a case as strange as yours, especially to her apprentice. And under your false name, as well. You force yourself to stay seated and assuage your nerves frittering with Malborn’s bracelet.

Tethyls doesn’t look surprised to see you when she comes in, but unruffled acceptance of every eventuality is a trait that all experienced healers have in spades. “Drals,” she greets. “Well, well. You’ve come into your money, then.”

“I said I would,” you reply, with more than a little bite.

“Everyone around here says that,” Tethyls says evenly. “You’d be one of the first I’ve actually seen come through.”

As angry as you are, you know it’s unfair to blame her for that caution. Now that you finally have the money and you’re within reach of healing, you can… you can _try_ to let go of the rage and terror of being denied.

“Yes, well,” you say. “Healer, please. Just tell me how soon you can do it.” Abruptly choked, you stand and fumble the purse from your pocket and thrust it at her. “Here. It’s all four thousand. I just—I need—”

“You don’t need to beg,” she says, gentling in the way that even the sternest healer will in the face of a patient’s pain. “Let me see… it’s just after eight bells, isn’t it. _Azura'm dalder_. I may as well. I can do it tonight.”

“ _Tonight_?”

She smiles wryly. “It’s not as though waiting will bring either of us a more opportune time. Othas—” Bedarie starts out of the shadows, her eyes burning with fascination at the whole exchange, at your money and your case and whatever she knows about your injuries. “Get my things ready for a full chirurgery.”

Gratitude makes you weak. Hardly believing that this is happening—now, _right_ _now_ —you sit back down in one of the creaky chairs and watch dizzily as the two healers bustle around the room, moving furniture and bottles and bundles of gauze.

“Take your robes off and come lie down on here,” Bedarie says, patting the large wooden table she’s dragged into the middle of the room.

Even though you should have known this was coming, you suddenly grow cold at the thought of exposure. (And the _table_.) You don’t want Bedarie’s too-curious eyes on your scars. “Everything?”

“Everything on top,” Tethyls calls, from where she’s busily mashing strips of fleshy white substance into a paste.

 _Rehydrated imp stool_ , you tell yourself, attempting to keep calm with distraction. _With what smells like… powdered canis root_. The knowledge is far less soothing than you’d thought it would be.

“What do you need with paralysis poison?” you ask warily, hands hesitating over your vest’s buttons.

“I hardly want you moving around during the chirurgery. You’ll be asleep, of course,” she adds quickly, noticing your flinch. “But I’ll be working with nerves, and they sometimes make muscles move without conscious thought. It’s for your safety, I promise.”

 _She’s a healer,_  you remind yourself, clumsily stripping out of your vest. _She’s going to help you_.

“Am I going to… feel anything?”

“Not a bit,” says Tethyls reassuringly. “Not even when you wake up.”

Still, you’re shaking as you toss your shirt onto the chair and climb onto the table. You keep your hands stiffly at your sides so that you can feel, muscle and bone, how there are no chains stretching you up. You stare at the ceiling, trying to ignore the way your scars burn.

Soon the whole room smells like the kettle of stewed thistle steaming over the fire. The familiar scent soothes your nerves almost as much as the knowledge that Tethyls really does know Restoration, given the way she’s scrubbing everything down in toxin cleanser. When you close your eyes, you can almost believe that you’re back in Colette’s laboratory at the College. Safe. Surrounded by chatter and complaints, of course, but… safe.

A couple of children disturb the fantasy when they push into the room, babbling in some bastard mix of Eastmarch Trader’s Tongue and Dunmeris. Alarmed, you sit bolt upright.

Bedarie shoos them out with the snap of a towel, hissing, “You know better than to come in Healer Tethyls’ room!”

“Mam—”

“ _Sst_. Out, Lilobah, I'm working!”

“It’s all right,” Tethyls tells you, drawing your attention with her warm gravity. “They won’t disturb us when we’re healing you. Nobody will. _Othas_.”

“I’m so sorry, Healer Tethyls,” Bedarie murmurs. “The door’s locked now.”

A short time later, Tethyls decocts the last of her brews into a flask and extinguishes the alembic’s flame. Your table is flanked by two others, one on each side, heaped with gauze and cleansing brew ( _thistle and beehive_ ) and pots of clotting salve ( _juniper and barnacle in deer tallow_ ).

“Are you ready?” Tethyls asks. You wonder how terrified you look, that her expression is so gentle.

Unable to speak, you nod.

“A sleeping draught and a paralysis draught,” she informs you, handing you a cup of each. “Drink them in that order, quickly. Then just relax. You’re going to sleep, and then wake up feeling much better.”

Clinging to that promise, you knock the first cup back. It scrapes down your throat, sickly sweet, gritty. Honey and dust:   _poison_. Stamina poison. She just didn’t want to alarm you by calling it…

Your eyelids start to slip. Clumsily you gulp down the paralysis draught. It numbs your lips, your tongue, your throat—your jaw, which slackens before you’re entirely done the cup. Suddenly Tethyls is there to catch the cup and your jaw and tip the rest of it into your mouth. Your spine goes liquid.

Bedarie’s hands cradle your head as she lowers you down to the table. You feel deadened pressure but no warmth, no crawling tingle from her touch.

“Time. Two marks,” Tethyls announces.

A spark of light flares on your left. “Two-mark candle lit,” Bedarie confirms, with an imitation of Tethyls’ calm professionalism.

“Check the nerve response.”

A thumb pulls up your drooping eyelid. Bedarie’s face looms in your view for a moment before the white spark of a magelight obliterates your sight. “Pupils not responding.”

“Excellent.” The shadow that is Tethyls moves something onto the table to your right.

And then you hear it: metal on metal. Delicate tools clicking against a tray. Tiny, sharp instruments—knives, pliers—needles long enough to push through your entire arm, causing agony but so little damage that it could be done ten, twenty, thirty seven times, _thirty eight_ — _thirty nine_ — _there, one more, and then you can tell me some more about Delphine_.

You want to scream, but all that comes out of your paralyzed throat is a thin whine. Everything is black. You can’t feel your body.

“Relax,” Tethyls urges, from far beyond the Void. “..rals, try to… ax. …al…”

 

* * *

 

Lightning jolts you out of numbness—spider lightning, tiny prickles of raw white sensation. Your shoulder burns.

Something moves in the shadow: a blurrily haloed saint stooping down to receive you. Sweetness on your tongue leaves a grainy residue.

 

* * *

 

You are very warm. Why, though... why did you sleep on the floor when you have an eiderdown mattress? It’s too hard on your back. Groggily, you try to roll onto your side.

Hands hold you down. “Easy,” a voice soothes, familiar although you can’t name it. “Don’t try to get up. Can you open your eyes?”

You make an effort. There is light for a moment, but your eyelids are so heavy. You try again after a brief blink to gather your strength—or were you asleep again?

You wake up.

Seated in a chair beside the table, Tethyls looks as exhausted as you feel. Still, she rises and presses a soothing hand to your forehead. “My name is Tethlys Malonyn. I’m your healer. You’re in Windhelm.”

“Unnow tha,” you slur, squinting in confusion.

“You were asking, earlier. Can you tell me your name?”

“Llers,” you mumble.

“Pardon?”

Memory catches up too late. “Drelas,” you correct, and try to cover the slip by asking, “Where’s Llarans?”

“I don’t know a Llarans. Drals. Do you know where you are now?”

“Windhelm,” you say, after taking a second to make sure you get it right. Awareness is filtering back more quickly now. “Your house. Y’fixed my hand.”

"Very good. Can you see clearly?”

You rub the halos from your eyes. “Yes.”

Sitting up takes effort, even with Tethyls’ supportive hands. A quilt falls down into your lap. Swaying a little, you put your hands to the table for support. Then you remember, and lift them, and look.

Somehow you had expected some extraordinary change. Your right hand looks just the same as before, except that the band of red scar tissue around your wrist has been broken up by three narrow lines of healthy, new-grown skin. Compared to your left wrist, all of the scarring is lighter, softer, blurred at the edges.

You flex your right hand. Your fingers obey. It doesn’t hurt to stretch your wrist.

“These scars shouldn’t pinch any more,” Tethyls says, illustrating with a gentle touch. “But Muthsera Edris will have to do the rest. Some of the nerves in your wrist needed regrowing. The damage went farther up than I expected, all the way up your arm. I fixed it all. It just took longer than I thought.”

On the soft skin of your inner bicep, there is the faintest of blue-white scars. You can really only see it because it’s a straight line of nearly perfect skin that runs through all the jagged lightning brands. You touch it, afraid and wondering.

Tethyls peeled you open from shoulder to wrist and dug into the meat of your body to pick at your nerves, and all she left you with is a faint ache and a drowsy head.

You’re healed. It’s done.

(Except for everything else. Except the scars, the nightmares, the memories, the—)

“Here, now,” Tethyls says. You press the scrap of gauze to your eyes and hiccup loudly. “It’s all right.”

“Azura bless you, healer.”

“So she does us all. Come on, now, let’s get you dressed.”

 

* * *

 

Stepping out into the city again is like emerging from a ruin or tomb: the shock of daylight after long darkness, the jarring presence of other people, the vague disconnect and the sense that you’ve lost some hours of your life in an underworld, a realm only half-real. Only a little of that sensation is from grogginess; Tethyls gave you to Bedarie and she made you eat and drink several cups of strong, tarry tea before releasing you.

Was the sky always so bright? The wind so crisp? Look at this day, look at the dawn.

Oh, Divines, you’re _happy_.

Damn the Thalmor, and damn Alduin. You won’t be helpless any more.

Being up and about before breakfast is on the board makes you feel purposeful, strong. You’re not creeping back into the Palace tipsy in the dead of night. Pride keeps your chin high as you retrieve your bow from your room. The rattle of your quiver against your thigh is as familiar as your heartbeat, and just as necessary. It makes you remember being _you_.

Galmar, seated at the Jarl’s table and waiting for breakfast, stares at you from beneath heavy brows as you march across the hall to him. There are more eyes than his on you, but you remember how to look confident and ignore them. You pause only for Ulfric, who sits next to Galmar, looking… speculative. Pleased, if you don’t mistake the slope of his brows. Heart pounding, you give him a short bow, and then Galmar.

“I wonder if there might be a place I could use for training that wouldn’t interfere with your soldiers,” you tell Galmar, careful with the rehearsed words. He’s terrifying still, more a bear than Ulfric is, but you are calm and you are not afraid. You _will not be_.

Galmar takes a long drink of his ale. “West porch,” he grunts at last. “Unless we need it later.”

“You’re very kind. Thank you.”

“You won’t eat with us?” asks Ulfric, indicating the bench. How considerate he is, _still_ , in never commanding you.

For the first time in a long time, you care about something more than the chance of food. You really _should_ eat plenty after healing, but Bedarie fed you enough, didn’t she? You don’t think you could sit through a whole meal with your fingers itching to feel the bowstring. “Not this morning, but thank you. If I may.”

Ulfric’s eyes linger over your shoulder, on your great black bow unstrung and waiting. He looks _satisfied_ , and you are proud, oh, you are healed and whole and finally good enough not to be ashamed any more. “Tomorrow, then.”

A smile pulls over your mouth, unbidden but unquenchable. Tomorrow will be a good day also. “As you say.”

The west porch is on the side of the Palace that you have rarely seen, but with directions from a guard, not hard to find. Three floors up, heavy doors open onto a wide porch notched into the side of the Palace, roofed by the floor above it and supported by massive columns. The porch faces the small mountain from which Windhelm was carved, offering no view, but it is unassailable from below and sheltered from the winds off the river to the east. Stuffed dummies and bales of straw suggest that the Stormcloaks train here more often than not, but for now the porch is empty.

Despite all your pride, you’re glad of the solitude. These days, you don’t like being watched.

“Here we are,” you murmur, walking down to one end of the porch. The soldiers have strewn sand and salt over the stones, and there’s a line of straw bales to kneel behind or stick arrows in. Or, just as likely, to keep fools from stepping out into the line of fire. You’ve practiced archery in enough places to know there’s always one or two people about with little more than Kyne’s breath blowing between their ears.

You go through the motions of limbering up, stretching muscles you haven’t worked in a long time. Shooting that bear out of desperation in Winterhold was one thing; this is another. Readiness makes your body tingle.

At the same time, the scars on your right arm pull painfully when you stretch. Your trunk doesn’t want to twist. Raising your arms, drawing back your elbow—

Never mind. Your hand is healed; you can do this.

—Gods. Was it always this hard to string your bow? “Of course,” you mutter, letting the ebony relax as you pant for breath, “out of shape a bit, aren’t I. Been a while. Come on, then…”

You manage to get it strung without breaking your own arm, and mumble a thanks to Talos for that. You might be weak, but you’re not _any more._

“Steady,” you tell yourself. An arrow on the string, you lift your bow and take a long minute to breathe and settle, feeling all the parts of your body. Tight in your spine, in your belly; tense on your right flank, relaxed on your left; loose in the neck, lips, and growing tighter between your shoulder blades as you draw the string back and _wince_ , scars straining, too tight at the armpit, _ouch_ and _release_ —

You hit the target. At the edge. Beside the target you were actually aiming for.

“Ouch,” you say, and force yourself to snort and smirk, keep the admonishment light. “All right, that’s fine. Again.”

At least you hit the right target this time. And the next time. But just barely.

“Come on,” you murmur, brows lowered. It’s harder to keep smiling. “Fixed the hand, didn’t you? Come on, Lleros.”

Nock. Draw. Release. (Terrible.) Nock, draw, release. (Better.) Nock, draw, _fuck_ that hurts.

Scowling, you shake out your right arm and glare at it. Your hand is shaking. “Tired already?” you say, mocking yourself, though it has a sharpening edge. “Some hunter you are. As if you haven’t been doing this for thirty years…”

Nock, draw, release. Flex your hand. Nock, draw, release. Breathe deeply, fighting down the anger. Nock, draw, release. Burning pain, tired muscles, through your arm and shoulder. Fight it. Nock, draw…

You shoot the last arrow wildly, barely able to control your breaths long enough to aim. They’re gulping half-sobs, driven by frustration and rage. You miss the target, of course, but so what? That’s not different than any of your other shots. Pathetic, all of them. Eyes burning, you stalk down the porch to yank your arrows from the straw.

Again. _Again_ , and damn it, get it right this time.

Nock, draw, release. (Pain.) Nock, draw, release. Nock (pain), draw ( _pain_ ), release (and miss).

Again.

(and miss, and miss, and miss)

Arrow after arrow thumps into the painted straw. You might be hitting the target but it’s not _good enough_ , not anywhere near what you should be able to do. Your right hand is steady on the string, true, but that means nothing if you can’t force your trembling arm to bend the bow. Weak, weak and pathetic, and exhausted, and hungry, you stupid wretch. Should have eaten when Ulfric offered, should have known better than to go without food after a long healing.

It’s as you feared. Your hand wasn’t the reason you were ruined after all.

Don’t cry. Do _not_. You are not allowed.

When the heavy oak door creaks, you sniff hard and slap yourself across the face. It makes your trembling lip tighten up. Tense in a way that you know is terrible for archery, you nonetheless raise your bow and aim again, as if you hadn’t noticed the door.

“Hold,” calls a deep, familiar voice. Your heart and your bow drop. Ulfric steps out onto the porch.

“Jarl Ulfric,” you say tightly, still squinting with determination at the far targets. He comes down the side of the porch and steps safely behind the straw bales. He stands a polite distance behind you. Finished breaking his fast, he wants to see what you can do.

Despair pulls your chest wide open. Miserable, you lift your bow, breathe deep, and aim. You barely manage to draw the bow halfway before you have to release, for fear of your arm giving out and losing control of the arrow entirely.

“Not so good,” you force yourself to say, as if the arrow quivering in the wrong target is a joking matter. You can’t smile, though, because you would lose control of your lip. “Been a while.”

“Of course,” Ulfric says.

His agreement breaks you. You sob in a breath too loudly, then utter, “ _Damn it_ ,” trying to cover with anger. “Shouldn’t—was supposed to be—I fixed it!”

“Lleros.”

“I fixed it!” you bellow, and it echoes around the icy porch. “I fixed my hand, I paid, damn it, I had it fixed, it was supposed to— _fuck_ —”

Abruptly, Ulfric grabs your shoulder from behind. His hand squeezes tight, tighter than your choking throat. “Peace,” he orders.

With an inarticulate noise of rage and misery, you clap your hand over your eyes, refusing to let him see. You chest squeezes with a swallowed sob. Azura, let you die, let you die right now and end this.

“Peace,” says Ulfric, quieter, but no less like a command. “Breathe. Control it.”

“I went to a healer,” you grind out, because he has to understand; you can’t bear it for him to think you’re just tearful and broken. “I paid. Four thousand. I took _care_ of it. I should be fine. Better. Not— _this_.”

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m supposed—”

“You were locked up,” Ulfric says, and that kills your voice completely. “It wastes the body. And they did their best to destroy you. You won’t be healed today. Or tomorrow.”

He does understand, you realize. He was imprisoned after the Uprising. You remember, in the months after, when people from your village had started risking the trip into Markarth for the market, that they’d brought back news of the wider world. “They’re both locked up together now,” Alabard Hill-Singer had said. “The Reach King in his rags and the Jarlson of Eastmarch. Much good all this fighting did them both.” It’s just… the Ulfric you know now, with his throne and his power and his dignity, looks nothing like you imagined the jarl’s son to be, overthrown and jailed and not so many years older than you. You didn’t make the connection.

You swallow hard and clench your right fist. Only now can you feel your fingers beginning to cramp and throb. “How long?”

Ulfric sighs. “There’s no telling. But it doesn’t happen faster if you destroy yourself in the process.”

Embarrassment presses your shoulders down. Ulfric, feeling it, grips your shoulder more tightly for a moment. Heat burns through your entire body from that point of contact, the connection. Your whole awareness centres on his touch, isolated but intense, firm and grounding against the internal agitation of panic and frustration and helpless rage. Maybe that’s what Ulfric intended.

“Peace,” he says again. “If you can find it, Talos willing. Control, if you can’t. In time.”

You breathe in, and out, and hold those words like a promise. Unable to acknowledge it in any other way, you press your hand over his momentarily. _I feel what you did here_ , it says.

Ulfric shakes your shoulder, brusque in his kindness being recognized, then withdraws. When you turn to face him, he looks cooler, remote—a king once again. But so do you, with your high chin and dry eyes.

"Tomorrow,” Ulfric says as he steps away, a farewell and promise at once.

“Tomorrow,” you agree.


End file.
